This book was a pleasure to read – the beauty of the writing is what sets it apart. It’s poetic, philosophical while still having enough action in it to keep me interested.

This book is a mixture of magic and historical fiction, when the last emirate of Muslim Spain is about to be taken over by Christian rule – this book isn’t a judgement of religion, it treats religious beliefs with respect (within the historical context – the Inquisition was what it was, after all) and throws in some mythology and folklore for good measure. It creates an atmospheric feeling I’ve never encountered before and really enjoyed.

The main characters are fascinating, as are their relationships with one another – it explores the non-romantic love between two people who have been held captive their entire lives under different circumstances.

I found the pacing a little bit too slow for my tastes, but that’s 100% my issue rather than the book, and the whimsical final chapters weren’t quite as strong as I was hoping for – leaving room for interpretation by the reader, which isn’t something I’m a huge fan of.

This is a beautiful mix of character study, historical fiction and atmospheric writing – a perfect read for a quiet weekend.

The cover drew me and it proved to set the tone of the novel. Imaginative. Distinctive. The story follows Fatima, a concubine and her friend Hassan through a warn torn world. The story was a surprise but slow and it took me awhile to finish it. But the characters are richly designed and the description of the culture was fascinating.

Mini review:

DNF

Trigger warning: Mention of war. Up till the point I read.

I received this E-ARC via Grove Atlantic and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I was really looking forward to reading this! I've read and enjoyed Ms. Marvel. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it.

I really enjoyed the friendship between the two main characters! However as I read on I started to lose interest. I didn't much care for the historical aspect or the war. I didn't care about the plot.

Overall this was a personal thing. I still recommend.

Very atmospheric but also very slow. Took awhile to feel like I understood what was going on, etc. The dialogue seemed a little stiff in my opinion as well. Didn't love it, the writing could have been stronger.

I'd give this book 3.5 stars for the sheer beauty of the first 2/3rds of the book. Fatima, a concubine, rescues her favorite mapmaker, who happens to be gay moments before he's taken to be tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. They're helped along they're journey by a singular talent of his, a literal ability to change landscapes and buildings just by drawing it, and by a jinn named Vikram. Chaos ensues in the 1/3rd, a map of an island is drawn and there's weird symbolism hinted at obscurely that I'm either too stupid to understand or was just truly pointless. The writing is lush, the characters are beautifully imbued with life and that's what saved this book because the ending was jarring and slapdash.

Advanced reader copy provided by Grove Press in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not one who is fond of slow reads but The Bird King truly was something different. I've read G. Willow Wilson's works in the comic book industry, Wilson does not disappoint in any form of literature. As I have said before, I'm not fond of slow reads but the writing style is just so vivid that it caught me in its embrace and pulled me deep into the story. The characters are all so interesting and the relationships between them are so unique that I can't help but love them. The plot starts off a bit slow but as the story progresses, so much starts to go on that I couldn't put it down. The ending really was something special and I love the message the book wants to convey. The Bird King truly is a special book filled with history, wonder, and religion that will capture the hearts of each reader as it takes them on a journey beyond belief.

4.5 rounded up to 5 stars

The book opens in 1490, during the ending of Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula when Spanish forces sent by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand have arrived at the Alhambra palace to demand surrender. It really enhanced my enjoyment of the story's setting having visited the majestic Alhambra in Granada, Spain. This work is a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy with mythology, the best category which it fits in would be mythic fiction.

For fellow fantasy lovers, I would say it has the excellent characterization and compelling plot-line of Robin Hobb's works, the feminist boldness of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy and the allegorical poignancy of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant.

The main protagonists, Fatima and Hassan, are consistent vividly drawn characters. Fatima, as a sheltered concubine born and kept in the inner palace, is a courageous spitfire fiercely strong woman who forges her own ground-breaking path in a world torn with war and strife. Hassan, I loved his cartographer skills of being able to create new places and landscapes out of his map drawing and his unabashed flirting with men. Vikram is a mythological creature of half-dog, blood-sucker and creature of shadows; his cynical sarcastic utterances were amusing and on-point.

Just like Ishiguro's The Buried Giant is not really about vanquishing the dragon, the quest for the Bird Isle and the Bird King is similarly tenuous and ambiguous. The Bird Isle may well have been Shangri-la, the fabled Shambala of Buddhist belief or Avalon, as the author herself mentions. It seems to represent a refuge that the truly desperate seek. Different groups of people (the Bretons, the Moors) have different myths and folklore about this place which Wilson illustrates beautifully. The identity of the Bird King is simultaneously clear and obscure - is it the one person specified or do we all have the potential to become bird kings? In addition, the reference to us human beings as 'banu adam' and creatures of mud and clay was illuminating. Through the story, I feel like the author is urgently telling us 'listen, we are all in this together, all these external differences of tribe, race, color, language, religion which lead to war, those don't matter, we all desire the same things.'

I feel the same about the last quarter of the book as I did about Wilson's last otherwise excellent book Alif The Unseen: it seems to spiral out of control, becoming bigger than the original premise but with no clear direction. Nevertheless, Wilson's prose is gorgeously evocative and addictive to read. Her created worlds straddle those of this solid known reality and the unknown. For instance, when she writes about the Spanish Inquisitors, it sends chills down my spine because of their documented inhumane torture but she also conjures up a mote that was in the eye of the Destroyer that has now infected the chief inquisitor. Wilson also fills a niche of writing Muslim-based literary fantasy which has been woefully underrepresented in the genre.

Highly recommended read. Thanks to Grove Press and Netgalley for an advance book copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

I started this book with high hopes. I lived in Granada for a while and love it there, so I was familiar with the setting. It was so nice to imagine what life was like in the Alhambra at that time, and I was quickly caught up in the palace hierarchy. However, once the Inquisition arrived, I felt that the book lurched forwards at an unnatural pace. I realise that this was meant to reflect the haste of the escape, but it felt rushed to me. The jinn felt rather Gollum-esque, and the middle of the book spent at sea was boring as a result - it seemed too slow after that haste. Finally, I was disappointed by the ending. “It was inside us all along” was a bit of a let-down, and the mythology seemed fumbled. There were a lot of loose ends and revelations that didn’t get the ending they deserved. Nice imagery though!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC

I feel fortunate that Netgalley shared a copy of this book with me. I thank them for this and greatly appreciate the experience of reading books before they are more generally available. This book started with great promise and I loved every word and most importantly, every character. It ended in a confusing muddle that left me confused and far worse, disinterested in the outcome and the characters.

I found the plot of this book was pretty slow and plodding I had to force myself to slug through to the ending which I found pointless. I felt the subject matter interesting but did not like the writing

Simply a magical book. The setting was perfect for this, and I liked the mix of various cultures portrayed in the novel. I can't wait to buy a hard copy for my own collection.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of a honest review... This one.
Sadly I DNF this book, I suppose it's my fault but there was something that really pulled me off, like this is far over my suspension of disbelief.
The writing style was really good but I didn't feel any strong attachment to the characters, in truth I Found the main character sometimes annoying.
I suppose this book will be appreciated by many readers, sadly not me.

I am very grateful for having received this e-ARC by the publisher and the opportunity to read it. However, due to technological and personal restrictions, I unfortunately cannot read the book in the format provided (PDF). Therefore, a review and rating cannot be provided at this point in time.

This book is beautiful both inside and out, it is also one of those titles where I’m afraid to comment to deeply for fear of giving away too much of the plot and spoiling it. Suffice to say I read this in one sitting and have since re read it already.
Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.

This book was really refreshing as far as the history and the lore. I feel like either books drag on and give you history lessons or actually show you what you need to see and this book did that. I was initially intrigued by the cover of this book and was not disappointed by the contents.
I would have preferred more of the magic world though as it is very rich in the historical content. It was also a little slow but still overall good.

I really wanted to like this book because the premise seemed interesting and I love Wilson's comic writing, but I just could not get into the story. I felt like we didn't get enough time in the beginning to establish the world of the palace before the characters went on the run and then things just got confusing from there. The story didn't make me care about the characters or their relationship. I was most interested in Luz and her relationship with Fatima, but felt like there were a lot of details missing about her that could have fleshed out her character. I did like that Fatima wasn't a typical heroine and had to adjust to life outside of her comfortable one in the palace, but I also found her annoying and repetitive.

The Bird King tells the story of Fatima and Hassan, of their friendship and of their journey to flee from the Spanish Inquisition. I anticipated this book would be filled with action, (which is the way I like my books!) but it was not. This book focused a lot more on the love we have for our friends, sacrifice, the choices we make and the inner journey one experiences on a physical journey. There were plot points, but they were not THE point of the book. Unfortunately because of that this book was not to my taste. For my personal enjoyment, this book was 2/5 stars. I've rounded up to three, because I think if a reader is looking for a literary/fantasy novel, this is the book for them, and it's a book that could be enjoyed by certain readers. I was just not one of those readers.

Try this book if:
-You typically enjoy literary fiction: books that focus more on the inner life of the characters and their development than the actual plot and things that happen in this book.
-You like fantasy/folklore and don't mind if your novels travel between "grounded in reality" and "mystical magical happenings." This book includes jinn (genies), talking and smiling animals, strange timelines (sort of like time travel, but more like time has stopped here but time still keeps passing there), and mapmakers with magic abilities. (If you need books that take place 100% in the real world, this is not for you!)
-You're interested in historical fiction from the perspective of the oppressed. History classes tell us the stories of the conquerors. The Bird King paints the Spanish Inquisitors as the villains (which is what they were) and tells the story of the persecuted. (This is something I loved about this novel!)

mainly knew G. Willow through her work on Ms Marvel and Vertigo, but this is the first of her novels I’ve read. And I love it.

It’s the story of a concubine and a gay mapmaker with mysterious powers that are caught up in the fall of Granada, and the reach of the Inquisition, and their attempts to make a life for themselves.

This is a fascinating and well paced novel that gets its hooks in you early and doesn’t let go. The characters are wonderful, the setting is one that is not normally explored in historical fiction, much less historical fantasy, and the fantasy is just a very practical and useful aspect of the story - being able to draw maps of places you’ve never seen before, being able to be unseen by being what those around you expect to see, things like that, with a touch of otherworldliness from the jinn. Most fascinating to me though is the use of stories in the novel, and how the stories we tell to each other shape us and our experiences, especially those that are passed on from others. There’s a line I can’t find at the moment but will try to find in the morning that talks about how all they have are stories from the people trying to conquer them, that really stuck with me.

Of particular note for me though is the big bad of the story, who is a white woman who is an Inquisitor, and while there is a story trope that is reminiscent of the Snow Queen/the Bible (the mote in the eye), but the novel makes it clear that while she is influenced by evil, the actions she undertakes and her beliefs are very much her own, and are absolutely terrifying. She looms over the story even when not there, and I have to wonder how having her in her headspace went for G Willow.

Get this when it comes out.

I'm having mixed feelings about this.
I loved the prose and the novel read like a middle eastern fairytale with djinns.
Fatima and Hassan's bickering annoyed me sometimes and personally I didn't feel like they developed much through the story. I liked the beginning a lot until it was a whole lot of running away, getting almost caught and more running away. I wished that Luz the Inquisitor was a bit more fleshed out and the ending was open and happened quite suddenly.
I feel like I'd read more by this author, but only would recommend this to readers who like a bit of a strange fairytale-adventure.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read this wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.

I took a lot of time to finish this but that’s because I was so lost in the writing that I savored it for a long time. My first G. Willow Wilson book and it amazed me big time. I started it and thought it is a historical fiction about the Muslim reign but it turned out to be a fantasy and it was magnificent. The story is set on Grenada where the Muslim empire is on edge of losing his ruling to the Kingdom of Spain after 250 years of ruling. A royal concubine – Fatima escaped with her mapmaker friend Hasan who can drew maps of unseen lands because the Spanish inquisitor saw it as a royal threat. The story is about their journey to the land of Bird King which is a place of myth.

The author used the history of Spanish inquisition to the proper portion and though I had not enough idea of that particular period , it still feels right to be used as the background of the main story. What I really like is the research of Muslim history and culture. Wilson reflects the essence of Muslim culture and progressive ideas of that time which is usually and highly misguided and misunderstood nowadays.

Middle of the story is slightly slow paced and bugged me a bit as the last few pages are seem to be so rushed but overall the world building is excellent so I cannot complain too much. The characters of the book is very fun to read. I really like the djinn and Fatima. They are new and fresh and vibrant to be met.

The ending is a bit questionable but there are so many incidents happening in the book which are enjoyable. The charm of the book is the writing style. There are so many lines I want to quote only because of how the book is beautifully written. It would be more fun if the book stayed with the historical fiction theme because I enjoyed that part a lot.



My ratings: 3.5 Stars