A Thousand Paper Birds Review

**Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and Netgalley for sending me an ARC in return for an honest review. 4.5 stars!!! I'm really surprised that this book has received such poor ratings. It has got to be one of the most underrated books of this year. I have to admit maybe this book is not to everyone's tastes, but I was pleasantly blown away when I started reading it. So, what exactly did I like about this book? Let me elaborate. One, the cover is just beautiful. Just look at it!!! I love the colour scheme and the illustration on it. It's utterly whimsical. And I'm a sucker for those kind of things. Second and most importantly is the writing, Tor Udall has a beautiful way of weaving a yarn. The writing has almost a dream-like quality to it. It's fleeting, luscious and descriptive. I was just sucked in with the words and the fact that the story was set in the Kew Gardens just elevated it to a whole new level. The descriptions and worldbuilding was breathtaking. Even the love making scenes were described so well. It wasn't erotic. I just loved it. There's no other word for it. Now for the content of the book. I think this is where people get lost a bit. The book is essentially about life, family, love, grief and lost things. There's a hint of magical realism in it and it's literary fiction. So, once you wrap your head around this, you should be fine. The story is about a guy named Jonah who loses his wife Audrey. It's about how he deals with her loss and her story is told through a series of characters. With each character, we learn their backstory and the part they play in the life of Audrey. So everything is in reality connected with one another. Through each character's perspective, as a reader we finally learn how Audrey passed away and the reasons behind it. The only negative that I had with the book, albeit a minor one was that sometimes there are character shifts within a chapter which did rattle me a bit but they were subtle enough not to cause much of a detraction from the overall storyline. Thirdly, the book also deals with a lot of things like art, music and reading. I especially loved reading about how the MCs especially are passionate about creative things and how these elements were integrated into their daily lives. There's a lot of descriptive elements regarding origami and the movement of music and how it relates to life. As a creative person myself and someone who loves visualisations, I found this utterly captivating and lyrical. I personally think the author has done a wonderful job of dealing with the issues of loss and love in the book. The lesson I learnt was that hope transcends everything and that's what got to me. I think in order to really appreciate this story, you have to be in the right frame of mind. However, I would really recommend reading it to enjoy the full gist of it. Please don't go by what the other reviewers have said about it, try reading it and judge it for yourselves. For me, this was a gem of a book.

#TorUdall #magicalrealism #romance #origami #literaryfiction #adult