Reviews with content warning for Torture - Boy, Snow, Bird

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Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

4 reviews

lynssss's review

emotional mysterious relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Listened to the audiobook which made it enjoyable to listen to the narrators' voices and accents. But as the book and it's parts are written in first person the accents really stay with the characters who are "narrating" their parts and don't deviate. I enjoyed the end of the book when there are a lot of characters converging in one scene but there was little payoff after these scenes and the action fell rapidly after this.

Content Warnings

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“I was only asking like that because I don't always show up in mirrors, either. For years I wondered whether it's all right or not, but there's been no one to ask, so I've decided that I feel all right about it. It's a relief to be able to forget about what I might or might not be mistaken for. My reflection can't be counted on, she's not always there but I am, so maybe she's not really me… I think that maybe mirrors behave differently depending on how you treat them. Treating them like clocks (as almost everybody seems to) makes them behave like clocks, but treating them as doors—does any of this make sense to you?”

TITLE—BOY, SNOW, BIRD

AUTHOR—Helen Oyeyemi

PUBLISHED—2014

PUBLISHER—Picador

GENRE—literary fiction

SETTING—New England mid-20th c.

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—women’s agency in mid-20th c. u.s., lower middle class life, mirrors & perception, patriarchal, classist, racial & sociocultural oppression—i.e. capitalism, slow burn plot, family secrets, passing & colorism, civil rights movement, jim crow & segregation, chosen family vibes, the purpose we give our lives, self-love (nature) vs self-loathing (“nurture”), sociocultural conditioning, dual+ perspectives (two different MC narrators), spiders & tricksters, sisterhood, access to certain cultural & academic spaces, experience as knowledge, prejudice & bias, some epistolary narrative, precocious child character, unreliable narrator, cycles of violence & trauma, the enormous gray area between good & evil in humans, DID (dissociative identity disorder), forgiveness & redemption

“Mirrors see so much. They could help us if they wanted to. In those days I spoke to every mirror in the apartment. I questioned them, told them I didn't know what to do, but none of them answered me. The girl in the glass exaggerated my expression, her gaze zigzagging as though watching a waterfall. She was making fun of me for sure, but I decided not to take it personally.”

Summary:

“The Whitman family has been harbouring a secret in Flax Hill for three generations. When Boy brings Bird into their lives, suddenly that secret is out in the wintery New England light. Written with heart-rending vibrancy and eerie beauty, BOY, SNOW, BIRD is a sinuous story in which a mirror never shows all there is to see…”

“You should only read Oyeyemi if you’re ready to start a lifetime relationship with a writer of gorgeous, gymnastic, fairy tale-infused fiction’ — backcover blurb from Flavorwire

My thoughts:

Oh wow. I know that it seems like pretty much whichever of Oyeyemi’s books I’ve read the most recently is my favorite at any given time but I think this one might actually be my favorite.

This is my second reading and I definitely picked up on a lottt of things this time around that I had missed or misunderstood initially and that helped me to better appreciate and understand what Oyeyemi is doing with the themes of identity, passing, perception, prejudice, trauma, sociocultural conditioning, and personal agency in this novel.

This is also one of her faster-paced novels I would argue. It’s extremely compelling and I really struggled to put it down at times. She gets into some really dark themes and the characters stand on some pretty precarious edges—every one of them at one point or another does something that could very easily be considered to be “irredeemable” and “unforgivable” to the point where at times you think you’re looking at a book full of villains but in the next moment the image seems more glowy and tender—like looking into a warped, clouded mirror. The use of the unreliable narrator device is also used to very (too? 😅) subtle effect to make the reader question how much of the character’s perspective is informing what information the reader acquires and the judgments they make about what is happening in the book.

A small note: This book is about how (cycles of/inherited) trauma can inform a person’s identity, exploring specifically the Black characters who are passing as white (and the effect that has on their relationship with not only themselves but with their family members and community as well) and a character with DID passing as their alter. And, jsyk, the experience of a person with DID whose alters have different genders is a completely different thing from the experience of a trans person. Feel free to DM me if you want more details about this since I see that *a lot* of readers have misinterpreted this bit over the years…

I would recommend this book to readers who love a challenging read that explores dark themes and isn’t shy about making the reader uncomfortable in order for them to learn things about themselves... This book is best read with your whole brain turned on. 😅

A final note: One more thing re: that ending—I just want to also gently point out that uncritically and automatically ascribing a trans identity to a character who is not supported as being trans by any evidence in the book *other than* the character being an afab who presents/passes as masculine, is actually quite problematic in that it perpetuates common and harmful transphobic, homophobic, and misogynistic ideas and misunderstandings, and could also be considered ableist as it erases the experiences of folks with DID. So remember to read thoughtfully and think critically. 🫶🏻

“First, I'm with Bird in any Them versus Us situation she or anyone cares to name. Second, it's not whiteness itself that sets Them against Us, but the worship of whiteness. Same goes if you swap whiteness out for other things—fancy possessions for sure, pedigree, maybe youth too . . . I'm still of two minds about that. Third, we beat Them (and spare ourselves a lot of tedium and terror) by declining to worship.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Season: late fall, the book ends with some post-Thanksgiving antics

CW // graphic animal cruelty (rats), child abuse & torture (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

THE ICARUS GIRL and WHITE IS FOR WITCHING, by Helen Oyeyemi
DARK TALES and THE BIRD’S NEST, by Shirley Jackson
THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES and THE TRUE DECEIVER, by Tove Jansson
THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett
RECITATIF by Toni Morrison
ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll
THE GOBLIN MARKET by Christina Rossetti
AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLKTALES edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Maria Tartar
BEFORE WE WERE TRANS: A NEW HISTORY OF GENDER by Kit Heyam (which includes a very nuanced discussion of gender & perception)
LUCY and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY MOTHER, by Jamaica Kincaid

Content Warnings

kcarney86's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

spinesinaline's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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