All the Birds in the Sky

Two worlds collide while two people used to defining themselves by the part they play within those worlds slowly discover they are selling themselves short by adhering to the dogma of science or magic. SciFi, magical realism, and an engaging relationship. Super well crafted story.

Wasn't a bad book, but wasn't great. I got about halfway through and decided to stop. i have too many other great books (sequels of great books) in my to-read list

I absolutely believe this DNF is a victim of my current slump, so I'd love to come back to it when I have the space for it and its voice that I'm not connecting with right now.

I am reviewing the Audible version of this book.

I really enjoyed this story, especially the character of Patricia. I found her character arc fascinating. I also enjoy a story where I can see some of the ending coming, but then, in a twist, it doesn't work out exactly as I thought it would. 

Alyssa Bresnahan is the perfect narrator for this book, particularly for voicing Patricia, with all her neuroticism, and the birds, with all their singlemindedness. Patricia and the birds are, to me, the core of this book.

The story is a quirky coming of age story that continues on into the struggles of young adulthood. Our misfit protagonists in junior high manage to end up where they wanted to be, and, in many ways, they are still misfits trying to forgive themselves and, in the process, finally reconcile with who they really are. Although Patricia and Laurence are the protagonists, I feel that Patricia is written more fully than Laurence. This may be because the author is female and just couldn't fully inhabit the thoughts and motivations of a male character as well as she could a female.

I received this book in the dead tree format as a birthday gift, but I already had bought the audiobook. I am glad that I listened to the audiobook version first. I think I'll regift the other.

This was a very good book. The dicotomy between the two characters and their similarities was a real draw. The author really builds a back story in an interesting and emotional way. I normally read scifi and this could fit into that but I think it also fits into what my wife finds more interesting to read which is definitely not scifi. There was more character and emotion here than I would normally pick out but I'm glad I picked this one up.

I tried with this book, really I did... but when it came to the most laughably awful sex scene I've ever read I gave up. Might have to track down whoever recommended it to me and find out how I'd wronged them enough to deserve this.

Stopped at 40%

Interessante, misturando magia e ya. Mas achei algumas partes cansativas.

DNF at 60%

I never DNF books but wow.. I just couldn't read this for a second longer.

It felt like a middle grade book but then it would hit you with extreme NSFW moments that reminds you this is a mature book.

this book feels like it was a book once but someone just scrambled the whole story and now chapters and paragraphs are out of order and doesn't make sense.

“Sostenían que una especie inteligente que emplea herramientas, como la nuestra, es una rareza en el universo, mucho más que un simple ecosistema diverso. Que lo más notable de este planeta es que nos produjo a nosotros. Y que los humanos deberían esparcirse y colonizar otros mundos, cueste lo que cueste, para desligar nuestro destino del de esta roca.”

Confieso que empecé el libro con un pesimismo infundado por culpa de la maldita portada. No ha sido decepcionante pero tampoco una de las mejores lecturas del año. Para pasar un buen rato y ya está, porque realmente te hace reir por partes y tiene muchas cosas rescatables, sobre todo la parte geek. Esa mezcla entre la ciencia y la magia fue tal vez lo que más me enganchó, cada parte con sus métodos y sus últimos recursos para intentar salvar a la humanidad: el Camino al Infinito y la Revelación. ¿Qué aspecto cobrará el mundo ahora?

P.D.: Ahora tal vez se hagan una idea de cuánto pica el ají peruano, por lo menos más que la salsa barbacoa tejana Alarma Cinco pero no tanto como el chile en polvo.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Patricia and Laurence are childhood friends, fated to become a witch and an inventor respectively. They fall away from each other and live separate lives, but eventually fate and a fearsome conflict bring them together again.

Review

I'm not sure why, but this isn't what I expected from All the Birds in the Sky. For some reason, I anticipated a poetic, metaphysical, romantic, very adult literary story. I wasn't sure I'd want that, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I don't mean to say that this book isn't any of those things. It is a bit of all of those, except that it's less adult and more romantic than I anticipated. I liked it more than I expected to.

While I liked the book, I did think it lacked direction. The characters start strong, but then meander around, almost entirely avoiding the book's initial framing, occasionally running into each other again. I felt that Anders had skipped some of the most interesting portions of their lives, and left us with the more humdrum element, though also the ones most immediately contributing to her plot. For example, Patricia, the witch in the story, follows the orders of a man named Kawashima, but we never learn why. Anders adds an author's note saying “if it seemed too random”, and I'd have to say that captures some of my feeling. Things happen, and they're sometimes interesting things, but I didn't feel there was a strong organic drive to the plot.

There's also some inconsistency and a need for continuity edits. The moral and emotional elements are at times heavy handed, at times too flat and distant. The overall structure of the book is on the choppy side. The posited dilemma - the battle of science and magic - is a pretty familiar one.

At the same time, I liked the prose and the characters in the short run - moment by moment, even if I wasn't as interested in their long-term arcs. In short, the book is a mix of strengths and weaknesses. This book didn't sell me on Anders, and I don't think I could say I know what all the fuss was about, but I could see another, more polished work winning me over.

I think that maybe the greatest compliment I can give a book is that, if I had read it as a teen, it would have been one of my all-time favorites. This book falls wholly within that category. That doesn't mean that it's YA fiction; it was supremely enjoyable as an adult, and some if its content is decidedly grown-up. Anders has a fantastic sense of humor, reminiscent of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, and she has imbued this book with infinitely more humanism and empathy than the average sci-fi read. This book is so much fun, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

This took me a long time to read but I'm glad I stuck it out. Simultaneously depressing and hopefully about the current state of the world, it was also at times really funny. In small, almost throw away phrases are some great jokes! Plus: birds.

Bom, nem acredito que cheguei ao fim desse livro. E o pior é que acho que ele não é pra mim. Passei a maior parte “encalhado” nele, esperando alguma coisa acontecer e incapaz de ler outras coisas (aí pode nem ser culpa do livro, mas enfim), só que nada acontecia; várias coisas aconteciam, mas nada acontecia. Não dá nem pra chamar o que acontece no fim de anticlimático porque a sensação é de que nada levou a nada.

Não acho que isso seja culpa de ninguém, não acho que seja um defeito da história, mas infelizmente não me cativou. Quero ler mais coisas da Charlie pra ver se é o estilo dela ou se isso só acontece aqui. Talvez dê certo na próxima.

Nope, I don't get it. I heard such good things about this sci-fi vs magic novel, but it fell pitifully short for me. The characters never felt real and the plot clumsily forced together. It was a chore to complete. Disappointed 😔

I wanted to love this book but I kinda fell short right at the end. However, the two protagonists: Patricia and Lawrence are beautifully written.

The book is split over 3 era's of our characters' lives. Firstly when they're young children where the world is huge and wonderous. Patricia in particular has her first adventure very early in the book, and in part I wondered if this was entirely in a child's imagination rather than happening to her.

The next era in the book Patricia and Lawrence are at (what I'd consider ‘middle school'), and frankly it's horrible. They're bullied and targeted across the board. I found this part of the book the hardest hitting, and probably closer to the reality I know and it made me sad for the characters. I also felt like there was no real growth from this period of the book and they were simply tortured for being different and that wasn't addressed (or I missed it).

Then the last era of the book the characters are young adults, Patricia a witch with more control over her powers (and yes, it seems that it wasn't her imagination back when she was a child), and Lawrence a full super nerd building a machine to save humanity.

The story feels like it accelerates in momentum, complexity and consequence as it progresses. It reads really well, and the sci-fi aspects are fun, complex and draw some interesting moral questions.

Except for me, the end just...kinda happened. I was following the story along, the world in the book was going to hell, level 10 dystopia stuff, and then all of a sudden the protagonists left alone, Patricia is following a pigeon to a tree, they have a weird conversation, she vaguely answers a question and then Patricia and Lawrence walk off together into the sunset (sort of) with a sense of hope and everything will be okay for them.

Yet the world is still collapsing (mother nature trying to course correct), witches (and wizards?) are blasting people into unknown realms, and intend to unleash The Unravelling (which we meet once and it's a horror show), and the scientists are pissed and building mega machines to blow away the witches. So that's all still happening and yet Patricia and Lawrence seem to be okay.

I was left feeling like I missed something crucial at the end of the book, because I felt like the characters were doom, but didn't realise it, and the world was going to die even though both Patricia and Lawrence intended to save it. So...yeah, I'm not sure.

I loved the characters, and the writing was great and really original, and quite biting at times. But the more I thought about the end of the story, the more confused I felt.

Very interesting and imaginative, I loved the mix of technology and magic and the sense of wonder. It kept compelling me to keep reading to find out what was going to happen next.

This was just excellent! It's a love story, but not the one you think, and the ending took me entirely by surprise. So! Good!

This fusion of magic and science didn't really work for me. Some of the characters' motivations aren't well explained, like what is the deal with Mr. Rose, really? The end sort of just fizzled out, and I found the last chapters to be a slog, which is the opposite of what a great book feels like, where you just don't want the story to end yet. Probably not going to recommend this book to anyone I know.

Unreadable.

“San Francisco never stopped astonishing Lawrence - wild raccoons and possums wondered the streets, especially at night, and their shiny fur and long tails looked just like stray cats, unless you look twice. Skunks nested under people's houses.”

Is there any magic left in the world? Magic to heal and provide hope. Has it been completely upstaged by technology, fallen into a meaningless oblivion? How far can technology go? Where does its contribution to society stop and the potential dangers begin? Let's try to find the answers in beautiful San Francisco through the eyes of our protagonists, Patricia, a witch, and Lawrence, a tech genius.

To begin with, I need to say that I am really, really tired of the latest trend of parents being horrible. I am actually positively fed up seeing fathers and mothers being cruel and heartless because they don't understand how special their children are. I don't like the message communicated through novels and I don't believe that this is a way to create a better or more believable story, turning parents into great obstacles the lead characters have to surpass or defeat in order to succeed. I am sorry for the rant but I see this more and more in Contemporary Literature and it's beginning to disturb me.

Having said that, I could feel those cute five stars approaching before I reach 50% of the book.

In a not so distant future, Science and Magic choose to fight against each other in a foolish attempt to restore balance to a world that is slowly dying. Patricia and Lawrence have been struggling for years to come to terms with their unique abilities, fighting against hopelessness, against their unsupportive families, and many times, against themselves. This is the premise around which this wonderful story is constructed.

This novel had been waiting in my TBR for quite a long time. I had read some positive reviews, some rather dishearteningly negative ones, but stubborn as I am, I wanted to see what the fuss was about and I grasped the chance to start it for a group reading. I didn't expect to love it so much. I confess I am not so fond of the first (short) part of the story where we see our couple as children and teenagers, but once they reach adulthood the story really comes alive. I wouldn't classify it as YA (again, I don't have much experience in the genre), but for me, the writing, the characters, the story are mature, well-composed and very, very exciting.

The writer has created a world where technology has taken the reins, where robots and humans are of equal importance, but in truth, machines of all sorts and kinds are slowly acquiring precedence. So we're in dire need of some magic here. And magic happens in a story that could have very easily become too cold and distant, too sci-fi and gadgety. There are beautiful urban descriptions of San Francisco, atmospheric and vivid, there are talking birds- many owls, people! There's even a Twin Peaks reference. There is life and beauty and love. Some descriptions are raw and sharp, however, like a knife in the heart. The bleak, perilous environment of the big city. The darkness and isolation. And then, the chaos that breaks out and brings disaster to the world. Floods, shortage in even the most common medicines, diseases, famine, violence, death.

Don't think this is a dark, depressing read. Well, it is at times, but there is also a distinct element of humour centered on our stubborn protagonists. Elegant and smart, faithful to every day speech. On the other hand, the writing completely changes tone in the most terrifying, harrowing moments, when we're close to witness the world's end. It becomes dark, ominous, raw and perfect. I was impressed by the function of the Caddy in the story. It's a gadget that aims to help people form a “better” life, one that would be “compatible” with their choices and preferences. They customize their profiles and it customizes their lives, an ideal example of how technology rules over society in the novel. Although, I admit that Patricia and Lawrence should have listened to their Caddies more carefully....

Ah, Patricia and Lawrence...You'll love these two. Patricia is a witch who uses magic to bring whatever kind of happiness she can, to save and soothe. She punishes the ones whose acts require punishment. She is a Healer that talks to animals and they provide company and help. But sometimes, it is too late...Lawrence is a tech- genius who aspires to make the world better without ignoring that it is ill-used technology that will bring disaster. I loved their relationship. It's tender and loyal and awkward, something we would expect from two people whose absolute priority is their talent. In fact, forget all the previous. To put it clearly and shout it for the world to hear, Lawrence and Patricia are one of the most beautiful, wonderful, well-matched and every positive adjective you can imagine couples we'll ever meet in a book.

You may find this novel boring if you aren't all that interested in the cyber - world and technology in general. You may find it too perplexing and confusing. Give it a chance, nonetheless. As far as I'm concerned, I believe it is a book that depicts the concerns and fears of today's world successfully. Is the human race threatened by the hungry greed that almost always comes with progress and power? I'd say that any book that makes you think and search for whatever answers may exist has completed its job and more. And we shouldn't forget that even the darkest times were washed away when people acted in unison, free of any prejudices and retained hope against all odds. Perhaps, we should remember this from time to time....

And just out of curiosity, what would you be? A Trickster or a Healer?

Also, Kit Harington for Lawrence's part (if the book ever becomes a film) because of reasons.

I don't know how this book won any awards, I found it uninteresting and very boring.

They can't both be right
but sure can be annoying
I'm all for doomsday.

Good, and definitely weirder than I expected. The ending is a bit abrupt, though.

Maybe I was just in the mood for something like this, but I really, really enjoyed it! The mix of fantasy and science fiction worked really well. For a book about magic, time machines, space travel, AI computers and talking animals, it was all very down to earth and I really enjoyed that about this book. For all the worldwide implications of what was going on, there was still just these two characters lives intertwining and each one trying to figure out life and their place in it and with each other. It never fell into the mushiness that it easily could have when the characters were young, instead dealing with a friendship that had lumps and bumps along the way...a whole lot of awkwardness, hurt feelings and uncertainty made it all very real despite the fictional things happening around them. As adults things changed and seeing all the pieces come together in the end and between the two characters was interesting and exciting. The last half of the book I read all in one sitting, because I just couldn't put it down. The moral dilemmas that are put forth give food for thought without being preachy, which was also another aspect I enjoyed. Overall I really liked it and would definitely recommend it!