As a fan of Ian Harding from Pretty Little Liars, I was excited to learn that he was interested in Birding. His book was a humorous blend of facts about himself amidst tales of the birds he loves. I'd highly recommend it to any fan of Ian and any fan of birds.

I really enjoyed reading this book! It was really interesting to learn about Mr. Harding.

As a die hard Pretty Little Liars fan, I was super excited when I heard about this book. I've purchased all the other books written by big PLL stars in the last few years, but never actually read them... so when I was granted access this title on Netgalley I was determined to actually read it in a timely manner.

ODD BIRDS was surprisingly really entertaining. It was a super quick read. I felt like Ian's personality really shown through in his writing and he actually felt like a real person, not just a famous actor. His descriptions of theater school totally reminded me of some my friends' experiences and his obsession with bird watching was genuinely fun to read about because he got so excited about it.

This is a must-read for PLL fans. There are tons of cameos and mentions of Ian's costars. A few years ago, when I first got invested in the show/series, I was HARDCORE. I'd watch every PLL-related video on Youtube that I could find and this included years-old livestreams with the cast members. It was super fun to see the same personalities of the actors being shown through Ian's perspective. There are also a bunch of little Easter eggs for people like me who watched Ian's smoothie commercial more times than I'd care to admit and would spend countless hours scrolling through PLL theory sites.

Since there is such a big fanbase for this show, I feel like that is mostly the audience for this book. Still, I think it was a good enough memoir for non-PLL-obsessed people to pick up. I think aspiring actors would find it interesting and relatable, and even aspiring birdwatchers would as well.

So, all in all, I think this was a successful book and I'm happy I read it!

***I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Odd Birds is by Ian Harding who you may know as Ezra from Pretty Little Liars. What you may not know is that he is into bird watching. Since his character on the show wrote a book, Ian decided that he should be able to write a book as well. The book talks a lot about his adventures in bird watching and relates some of the lessons he has learned while doing it to his life as well. He also talks about how he auditioned for Pretty Little Liars, call backs and how he feels now that it is ending after seven seasons.

I have no interest in birds at all, but that didn't take away from the fact that I really enjoyed this book. Although I would have preferred it talked more about his acting career I think he found a really nice balance of funny anecdotal stories, bird stories and other stories about his life.

I received a free e-copy in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

My thanks for being given an ARC of this book by NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. I'm not sure what caught my interest in the book description as I've never heard of the author, who was born in Germany and I've never seen Pretty Little Liars. I have heard of the show of course but it's been many years since my teens. The hobby of birding is different and I do like things that are a bit unusual, so I took a chance and went for it. I'm glad I did as I found the book and the author both funny and charming and entertaining to read. By the time I found out about the Labradoodles, I was sold. In fact, if I'd known he had dogs I would have requested the book much sooner, as a dog fan/pet parent myself. I also enjoyed his goofy assortment of friends and family and his easy descriptive way of writing. I hope to see this young man continue to develop his writing in the future as I think he has more to say.

Much more interesting than I expected, but Ian Harding doesn't really have any interesting experiences to write about. There's no drama, no pain, just a very light read written through the clever lens of bird watching.