About the Author
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, and has extensive personal, professional, and academic experience relating to autism. Like her protagonist, Viktoria is autistic. She has presented her doctoral research internationally, most recently speaking at Harvard College on autism and literary narrative. Viktoria lives on the Margate coast with her husband and children.
I lived for and loved a bird-heart that summer; I only knew it afterwards. - Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly – her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home.
Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book. Soon they are in and out of each others’ homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has something that Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.
Review
I think my heart broke a little for Sunday. Not sure if that was the intention, because the growth of the character or rather her ability to finally leave the expectations of the demands of society behind her, which is a positive development. Instead the bigger picture of the way Sunday is perceived, misunderstood and treated, is what I found most poignant.
The transition from trying to adapt to societal norms to make everyone else feel more comfortable about her to finally being able to lay that aside and just be Sunday - it's a powerful message about the way we perceive neurodivergence in our society.
Dolly is unfortunately also part of that unjust scale. Only really experiencing her mother's traits as inconvenient and perhaps even embarrassing - not really understanding how hard Sunday tries to curb the instinct and overrule the uncomfortable. Indeed her place in society as an adult is tolerated and Sunday is done unto instead of with or for.
Why is the expectation always - without fail I might add - how to conform and both blend and bend to fit in instead of acceptance of what can't be changed. There is no niche for neuro-divergency, because each person on the spectrum has a combination that is individual to themselves, and the common traits are an assumption of sameness, which means the vast differentiation isn't seen or catered for the way it should be.
It's a beautiful work of literary fiction - poignant and memorable, it will certainly leave a lasting impression on readers, regardless of how they experience Sunday's story.
Buy All the Little Bird-Hearts at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Tinder Press: pub date 2nd March 2023 | £16.99 | Hardback- also available in Ebook. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Tinder Press.
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