REVIEW: When We Were Birds (Ayanna Lloyd Banwo)

Book: When We Were Birds

Author: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Premise: The St. Bernards women are responsible for the passage of souls into the afterlife. But when her mother dies, Yejide is left unprepared to fulfill her destiny. Meanwhile, Darwin has to break his religious oath and takes the only work he can get: grave digging. Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both.

This book had me written all over it. Magical, gothic, fated lovers, Trinidad - who could resist! There's a good amount of magic realism, gothic and romance throughout the story. I loved that it's written in Trini dialect. I felt it brought a kind of intimacy to the book, as if it was a story passed through the generations.

I loved the St Bernards family being a matriarchy. However, this puts pressure on Yejide as she steps up to head the family while dealing with a gift that is also a burden. She had a complicated relationship with her mother. There's a beautiful section where Yejide talks about how the memories she has of her mother are stored in different boxes, which she unpacks one by one.

Darwin has a great heaviness in him following his decision to break his religious oath to work with the dead. But we get to join him as he starts to see death in a different light and helps comfort those grieving. In this way he complements Yejide nicely.

Overall, loved this book!!!!