Boy, Snow, Bird

By: Helen Oyeyemi

Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Carra Patterson

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white. Among them, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.

Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving, Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.

©2014 Helen Oyeyemi (P)2014 Recorded Books

Confused

Interesting story, however it was confusing at many places and I had to rewind alot

Lyrical.

I ripped through this story on one sitting, it is that compelling. Oyeyemi tackles the largest issues of mankind--identity, family, sex, race, society--in a story as rich as it is engaging. Bravo is all I can say!

Wow!

Very imaginative of the author to envision the back story of a "wicked" stepmother. It is hard to review this book without giving away the plot, so suffice it to say this was a very interesting story. The characters were well developed and the plot fairly well paced. And there were several plot twists that induced a little jaw dropping.

I enjoyed the book so much I read reviews and interviews with the author which all made me want to read more by her. I highly recommend this book.

interesting

It varies from extremely slow to what just happened? OMG! Took me a little longer than
usual to finish

Acceptance

What did you love best about Boy, Snow, Bird?

The fact that everyone has to accept each other no matter where they come from. That barriers can be broken if we open ourselves up.

What about Susan Bennett and Carra Patterson ’s performance did you like?

Narration is important to me as the story and the narration in this book was good and believable it put you into the story.

If you could take any character from Boy, Snow, Bird out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Snow, because of her heritage and the way others acted towards her. I would be more interested in how she felt about herself.

Caught a mistake in the performance!

Towards the end of the story, one of the actors accidentally says “Cara”’s name instead of that of the character! It’s trivial, but it confused me for a brief moment

Wonderful surprise read!

I went into this book knowing very little about it. I heard Helen Oyeyemi giving an interview on Reading Lives podcast and thought I'd check out a book by her. I was blown away! I loves this book. I have it on Kindle and Audible. In both forms, it is wonderful. The readers are fantastic and the story is amazing. I loved it!

A great story

I enjoyed this book greatly. I like that it touch on race, colorism, parenting, abuse and forgiveness. The author weaves a tale that is unforgettable.

Difficult to follow, plot line unclear.

The writing was lyrical at moments, but the subject of the novel was never clear and the ending left much to be desired.

Read the book, skip the audio version

My recommendation would be to read this book by the page as opposed to an audiobook. I had a hard time following the story once it branched off in the middle section in interactions between Bird and Snow. Overall, I believe the theme is that family secrets are dangerous and can destroy healthy relationships but I wish the author had gotten to the point sooner because I felt the story just dragged on and on.