Thank you NetGalley for allowing me an arc of this book for my honest opinion!

I absolutely loved watching this incredible young woman trying to navigate her way in life while trying to take care of 142 ostriches. It had a dynamic cast of characters that were very relatable-Tallulah, our main character, who's inner strength and resilience helped her find her confidence, her heart-broken and lonely grandmother Helen, her drug-addicted uncle Scott whose past regrets led him to make impossible choices, and her Aunt Christine, the center of the whole family with a big brood of her own. Any one or all of these people could be part of your own family, and watching Tallulah find her footing was just as satisfying as watching one of your own family members succeed. I absolutely loved the ostriches. Their personalities made me smile and sometimes made me misty eyed. (I really loved the last chapter of the book, when Tallulah and the ostriches grieve together. It was beautiful.) I'm really looking forward to this book hitting shelves-I plan to buy it so I can reread it and pass it around to all of my friends and family! I can see this being one of the most enjoyable reads of this year and I hope many others will love this too.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for this ARC!

April Davila crafts a unique tale in "142 Ostriches." Reluctant rancher Tallulah Jones inherits an ostrich farm upon the loss of her grandmother, but she also inherits the problems of toxic family: a legacy of poverty, addiction, criminality, and abandonment. Trying to find herself and make her own life means letting that ranch go, but chaos ensues just as she tries to escape. Readers will cheer for the tough, plucky young woman dealing with her grief and animal lovers will enjoy spending time with her ostriches. Davila never veers from the energy of the story but she inserts beautiful imagery of the desert (which Tallulah initially feels herself scratching in like an ostrich) which comes as a surprise and points to her skill as a writer.

This is a heavy story, about loss and grief, and about family relationships. The setting is an ostrich farm in the desert, which put a unique spin on the themes of obligation and self doubt.

This is our protagonist Tallulah's story of coming into her own as a young adult. Of finally being able to make decisions for herself. It's also about her family. She must come to terms with who they are and the decisions they make.

The writing is atmospheric. I could feel the heat of the desert and smell the dust. The ostriches are significant characters, and I appreciated what I learned about them.

I recommend this one for readers of literary fiction, though there is a little bit of mystery and suspense as well.

I had zero expectations starting this novel. I always find myself hoping to find the hidden gem that will be my BOOK OF THE YEAR! when I go in knowing nothing about the author or storyline. I thought 142 Ostriches was good! It didn't blow my socks off and probably won't make it onto my shelf of all time favorites, but it was a solidly enjoyable read. Lots of strong women and lousy men.

Well, well well. This book was exactly what I expected mainly from the title and description of the book. I did enjoy this book. Was It action packed and thought-provoking? No. But also the author never said It was. This was what I like to call a "nice" book and what I mean by that, is that it was a book that is a welcome break from being scared out of my mind, confused, pulling my hair out, or climbing the walls trying to figure out who did what to whom.
In other words, it was merely a book I like to read every once in awhile to take a break from a horror/fantasy/thriller genre. A book with a decent storyline that you just want to curl up with a nice, sugary cup of tea and enjoy the story. The characters in this book were likeable enough. There is the main character Tallulah, who has a screwed up mother (who is kind of flighty and slutty, but not all that bad in an abusive way. She's just more of a roommate than a mother with her dreadlocks and selfish lifestyle. Also there is no father, just a string of boyfriends. Like I said, a roommate). . Sensing this, Tallulah's grandmother, Grandma Helen, swoops in and takes Tallulah, raising her on an ostrich farm, from the age of 7.. 142 Ostriches to be exact! Who knew ostriches have personalities? .That had a nice touch and was interesting, especially the little tidbits the author writes about ostriches liking shiny objects and how dangerous they can also be pecking at you or kicking you to death, if they don't like you. Terrifying! But not the kind of things in my nightmares! I felt that there could've been a lot more facts about ostriches thrown in there which would've brought the book up to 4 stars, instead of a 3.5 for me. I did like that Grandma Helen named them and treated them as pets. But I felt the book would've been better if it were more about the ostriches than the people.
Hold on to your horses people, or ostriches, there is a storyline and plot here. Tallulah inherits the Ostrich farm and could get a pretty penny for it, which to her is attractive, being she is young and has other dreams. There are also some villainous characters, like J.J., a fellow ostrich farmer who I would like to punch because of his treatment of ostriches and also Tallulahs not so sober, recovering addict of an uncle, who is bitter because he inherits a watch, instead of any land or piece of the farm. Uncle Henry does some wicked things to Tallulah and especially ripped my heart out what he does to some innocent ostriches.
Along the way, there are some other characters, like Devon, the boyfriend who is a lukewarm at best lay. Oh the tawdriness of it all! Mainly, that's all we know about him and NEED to know. He sucks in bed, should I say more? I guess I would recommend this book as one of my "nice " books. It was a fast read and I read through it without putting it down, so that's a plus. There was a little surprise ending that I saw coming but was not totally predictable. I would like to read more from this author, but if I had to criticize one thing, I would've liked more facts about ostriches, and would've enjoyed more than just three or four of their personalities shine through. A solid 3.5 to 3.75 stars. Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this read in exchange for my honest review. #142Ostriches#NetGalley

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

When Lu''s grandmother unexpectedly dies weeks before she is to take off for a new job in Montana, she is left with a conundrum. Does she sell the farm, and all 142 ostriches, or does she take up the legacy her grandmother has left her and run the farm?

What I liked: I liked the tug and pull between the two sides of Lu: the girl that loves the farm and wants to stay and the girl that feels the need to make her own decision and go out into the world. The tension between the two sides of herself was interesting and developed very nicely.

What could have been improved: I wanted to see more interaction with Lu and her mother. She randomly shows up halfway through, but I don't feel as though that relationship was really explored a lot. There was a lot of backstory and build up, but it sort of fizzled flat.

What I didn't enjoy: the uncle storyline. As a catalyst, I felt like it was a little underdeveloped and strange. The reader never really gets closure with that situation, and I wanted more.

Overall, very well written and a decent family drama.

This is a wonderful book! Death does crazy things to a family and this books touches an them all. Substance abuse, infidelity, loneliness, suicide, feelings of inadequacy, abandonment,....somehow the author is able to tie them all together in a cohesive story with very believable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

142 OSTRICHES is difficult to categorize. It's not women's fiction, but it's not literary fiction either. I enjoyed April Davila's writing style, which is lovely and easy. She's not trying too hard and I appreciate that. She lets the story unfold organically. With this particular story, letting it unfold organically means a somewhat slow beginning and then, toward the end, the pace picks up dramatically. There's a surprising climax scene involving danger and violence that I did not see coming, especially given the leisurely and almost contemplative tone up until that point.
I enjoyed learning more about the desert and the ostriches. The author did a nice job of showing the ostriches' personalities.
If you're looking for a fast-paced, dramatic page turner, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you appreciate a gentle, well told story that you can dip in and out of, give 142 OSTRICHES a try.

Tallulah Jones use to live with her alcoholic- mother in a pathetic apartment in Oakland.... but at age 13, her grandmother took over the caretaking - and moved Tallulah to her ostrich ranch in the Mojave Desert in California. Tallulah hadn’t seen her mother at all for 11 years.

Talluluh loved working with the birds and on a ranch for many years...
but she was growing up.
At age 24... she was planning on leaving to join the Forest Service in Montana.....
But....
Grandma Helen played a dirty trick…she went and died, ( strange accident), knowing that Tallulah would be the only person who could run the ranch in her absence.
Grandma Helen had left the ranch to Tallulah, knowing she was the only one who could run it. Her other three children had any interest in it.

Tallulah had to keep up with the work on the ranch by herself.
“The flock would lay dozens of eggs every day in the hot summer months of the peak season. Each egg had to be collected, washed, polished, and stacked in cold storage for eventual shipping out to specialty grocery stores all over the country.
Without grandma Helen it was difficult to keep it up”.

Tallulah planned on selling the ranch - had a buyer and everything... but almost instantly the ostriches stopped laying eggs. Not exactly a good sign for the buyer. ”Houston, we have a problem”.

The story moves in several directions.
Tallulah had grown up with an alcoholic father, a very distant mother, an aunt Christine who embrace God and an Uncle Scott who had lost himself in drugs....
but the resilient Tallulah learned that one step leads to another… one idea connects to another…and if she wanted to save herself from following the footsteps of behaviors that didn’t enrich or empower...she had to trust that moving forward would save her.

Sweet messages - and symbolism throughout...
Tallulah had an honest voice ... she struggled against daunting odds to find her place in the world - a place she could call home.

Sweet - touching story....
the power of the ostriches are felt symbolically throughout this story in relation to a young likable woman coming of age.
Though they can’t fly, Ostriches are fleet, strong runners....as our powerful young protagonist was.

“The ostrich was large, as was its feathers and eggs.
In fact, the ostrich spiritual totem lays the largest eggs out of all birds on the planet....
Since they were so large they were a symbol for wealth, abundance, and fertility”.

A quick read...with writing that oscillated with true feelings.
By the end of this story the thoughts that came to me were.....
in the end... nothing was behind.... Tallulah had gathered her feathers, tilted her wings upward and gazed forward.

Gorgeous book cover!

Thank you Kensington Books, Netgalley, and April Davila

142 Ostriches, by April Davila, was an oddly good book. I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but I wasn't disappointed. There were some characters in 142 Ostriches; some people with some serious issues that made for quite the read. The book was definitely an action-packed family drama, and my only gripe is I wish it'd been a tad longer. Spoiler alert- the drama with Scott and his escalation and downfall felt a little too quick for me. I almost feel like we didn't see him angry enough, or didn't hear enough about his addiction history, to make driving into an ostrich pen and attempting to murder your niece seem plausible. I know meth does some strange things to people and so a lot of his behaviors can be sort of attributed to the meth, but given the logic underlying his escalation, it seems like maybe providing a bit more of a backstory on uncle scott pre-getting clean would've helped. I also would've loved more on Aunt Christine. Out of nowhere, her husband is cheating on her, has been her whole life, and now she's done (while preggers with baby#6)? Maybe I'm looking for a prequel of sorts, that tells us all about Grandma Helen and her kids and gives a picture of the before I felt was lacking in this one. I think my favorite part about 142 Ostriches was that the ostriches were characters themselves. I loved their personalities and thought they brought an extra dimension to this story we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

When I finished 142 Ostriches, I sat in a trance of the fluttering of my heart. I think anyone who devours fiction is looking for a book like this: a novel of novelty, the experience of being utterly transported and a little bit transformed.

Dávila’s writing left me enchanted by the Mojave Desert, a gorgeous backdrop to the ostrich ranch where Tallulah Jones wrestles with fundamental questions of life—How do I make my own way? What is home? Who do I want to be? The ostriches in orbit of these questions are at once exquisite and comical, graceful and potentially lethal, mute and telling. I was frankly surprised to fall in love with birds.

Loaded with deft and luscious writing, 142 Ostriches is a marvel of page economy, also delivering a fast-paced plot of bizarre intrigue. So much about this book is unusual, yet relatable. Everyone will recognize an Aunt Christine, an Uncle Scott, or a Grandma Helen in their own lives. Tallulah’s sense of self carries the narrative as her life and family shift beneath her feet.

Thank you to Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for the Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for my honest review.

24-year old Tallulah wants nothing more than to blow her small Mojave desert town and head for a fire prevention hand crew in Montana. However, when the grandmother who raised her dies suddenly and leaves her the Ostrich Farm (complete with 142 ostriches), all bets are off.

Tallulah is a gratifyingly strong character. Coming from a family that runs away from problems — her uncle is a meth-head, her dread-locked mother is constantly on the move, and pretty much everyone she knows is a drinker — Tallulah has to learn how to face her problems, figure out what is important to her, and decide what kind of life she wants to lead. The journey is full of drama, quirky ostrich behavior, and the beauty of the desert.

The writing is decent, and I liked the overall “face your problems” message. I did have some trouble with the attitude towards the addict in the story. He inflicted real, and potentially lethal, damage on multiple people (and ostriches) and yet Tallulah continued to make excuses for him and feel bad for him. I don’t agree with having compassion to the point of relieving people of having responsibility for themselves and therefore allowing more people to be badly hurt.

That aside, a good read, likable characters, and enjoyable ostrich lore.

"When pressed, she would say that the desert was her church, the perfect rhythms of nature her hymns, the elegant wisdom of the ecosystem her Bible. She put her trust in the shifting sands that surrounded her and said that if there was a God, he resided in the wind and the moon and the unrivaled yellow of a desert marigold."

After Tallulah's grandmother dies, she's left with a ranch of 142 ostriches in the Mojave desert. She's torn between what her grandmother would want and her own personal desires. She's worked at the ranch for many years but feels like it might be her time to choose what comes next, and not out of duty or guilt. Many members of the nearby community are dealing with addiction and that comes into play throughout the novel as well. There were some well written passages, especially considering this is the author's first novel. I enjoyed the story and would read more by this author in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read this novel over the weekend, actually over the course of a Saturday between loads of laundry. While I was changing my whites I’m from the washer and into the dryer I would wonder “why aren’t Tallulah‘s ostriches laying eggs? Are they sick? Heartbroken?” I became quite invested in Tallulah‘s ostriches and worried about their safety.
Obviously the novel isn’t just about ostriches. It’s a novel about self discovery. It’s about believing one thing about yourself and then realizing you are wrong, that your identity sometimes isn’t found out in the great unknown but rather it can be found in the love and expectations of those around you.
This little novel, was quick and captivating without intricacies of plot or grandiose themes. The writing style was engaging enough to hold me throughout several loads of laundry and then some!

I loved this novel. Never would I think I would be so enraptured and invested in ostriches! A short work of fiction with a plot that moved along at a steady pace, but the author still had time to develop a complex cast characters. My favourite read of 2020 thus far. I would recommend this read

Lots of action and emotion are packed into this short novel! This is the story of Tallulah Jones, who inherits her grandmother's ostrich farm that she was desperately trying to leave behind. Her family is messy, her mother (whom she hasn't seen in years) disappears when things get tough, her uncle is a violent addict, and her aunt is living a lie, devoted to religion and pregnant with her 6th child while her husband is having a affair. As she finalizes the plan to sell the farm and move to Montana and start a new life, the ostriches stop laying eggs, jeopardizing her escape plan. Things become tense in the family as jealousy over the money the sell of the farm will generate raises its ugly head, and everything turns dramatic quickly. This was well written, engaging, and a quick read. Recommended!

Tallulah's maternal Grandma Helen stepped in and took her from her negligent mother when she was a teenager. Tallulah finished growing up on her grandmother's ostrich farm, helping with all the daily chores and slowly taking over more and more of the physical tasks. She feels stifled and unsettled, but when she finally gets her chance to leave Grandma Helen dies suddenly and leaves the farm to Tallulah. Tallulah immediately comes under pressure from the differing expectations of her Grandma Helen's three children (Tallulah's alcoholic mother, capable and very fertile Aunt Christine, and drug addict Uncle Scott - each with their own agenda), as well as her boyfriend, Devon. This book is about family ties: the emotional ones that are hard to break even when they are unhealthy, and the strengthening of other bonds under pressure. The backdrop is the farm and its ostriches, and even the ostriches are affected by the change that Grandma Helen's death has brought. I loved the passages about the ostriches and even though I felt as though I was given enough information about the farming of them for their eggs and snippets of personality of a few of them, I wish there had been a little more about them.

I really enjoyed the book. I felt there was one loose ending that I can't mention without a huge spoiler, but it didn't impair my enjoyment at all and would recommend it to anyone who likes books about complex family dynamics.

When the year is over, there is no doubt in my mind that this will be one of my Top 5 books of the year! Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for sending me a free advance copy of this book in return for an honest review. So much goes on in this book that one is hard pressed to come up with a favorite part of the book. OK, for me it was the Ostriches!! Visited an Ostrich and Emu farm in Aruba and was fascinated by those birds, and this carried over with my reading of this wonderful debut novel. Found out a lot about those birds, but there is so much more to this book. April Davila fills her book with an interesting story, that has both great and flawed characters and an inspirational message of belief in one’s self. We follow about a week in the life of a young lady who has to confront the death of her grandmother, a totally derelict Uncle, a Holy Roller Aunt and a mother who she has not seen in 11 years and who certainly would not get any awards for mother of the year! Oh, and what to do with those 142 ostriches and the farm she inherits from her grandmother. The strains that Tallulah is under would sink many others, but years of resilience living in the desert of California and taking care of the ostriches have instilled upon her a backbone and courage she never realized she had. A wonderful book about family, dysfunctional relatives, courage to face an unknown future and 142 ostriches. The author does a superb job of taking us on wild swings in action and the lives of the characters. There is little negative about this book and therefore it certainly is deserving of a 5***** rating. Top notch effort Ms. Davila, I look forward to your next book!