wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

We Are All Birds of Uganda follows a young lawyer called Sameer as he thrives in his high stress, long hours job as a London corporate lawyer, and receives good news on the job front that requires a move to Singapore. But Sameer struggles to tell his family that he is moving country, as the weight of his responsibilities as the son who should give back, lie heavy on his shoulders. Eventually Sameer takes a trip to Uganda, a country his grandfather and father forcefully emigrated from in 70s and he connects with the land and people.

There were lots of things I enjoyed in this book - from amazing food descriptions (I'm craving Indian food now but even more so Asian-Ugandan fusion food!) to intense, complicated family dynamics and a look into a world history I had no idea about. I feel so ignorant that before this book I had no idea about the Indian/Asian population in Uganda, and how this community was vilified during a period of unrest in Uganda to the point they were pretty much kicked out of the country despite growing successful businesses, and calling Uganda home.

There were times it was tough to read this book as Sameer's frustration and his lack of control over his own life screamed from the pages from the way his new boss treated him in his job, to how his family didn't think he should be able to live his own life and instead come back to the town he grew up in, live with his family once more and join the family business (plus give up financial independence and use the family account where the dad monitors all spending, which actually had me screaming in horror). I think Indian culture (possibly to an extreme level) is portrayed well in this book from the point of a modern British-East African Asian man loathe to conform to his father's ancient ideas of what a person should do. There were many times Sameer wasn't heard in this book, and times he should have been speaking louder.

I loved the descriptions and feels of Uganda when Sameer travels there, as well as the moments of beauty and love in Hasan's letters about his love for Uganda. It really brings to life a vibrant, colourful country yet it didn't shy away from the more troubling aspects such as the racism (both African-Asian, and Asian-African), as well as the poverty in the country. I appreciated how Sameer and Maryam had to face a life of being judged for being in a interracial couple, and they had to think about how hard this would be from them from all sides including disapproval from Sameer's family.

I did think Sameer was just a bit of a wet sock type of character. He was hard to figure out at times as it seemed his mind jumped to different things he wanted to do, and when things got hard he ducked out quickly. He went from loving lawyer life, to not wanting to be in it very quickly on his Ugandan trip, and the amount of times he changed his mind about things would give a reader whiplash. I didn't really respect him much as a character, and I just wanted him to have more conviction about everything. I did like how he renewed his relationship with God, and Maryam encouraged him to explore his feelings of faith.

The ending of this really annoyed me. It felt like there was so much unfinished business, and I think this also points out problems with the pace of the novel. So much time at the start is focused on Sameer in London, with Rahool and Jeremiah and by the time we see Sameer make big changes in his life, the book is 80% done so the repercussions are very rushed and we get a cliff hanger ending that just doesn't feel worth it. This book isn't a particularly happy read. 

In a world where magic exists, six of the finest young medians with untapped potential are scouted for a position to join the Alexandrian Society - but only 5 of them will remain at the end of the end, and an elimination round. Nico and Libby, friendly enemies in constant orbit around each other are talented physicists, capable of astounding bouts of physical magic, while Reina, a naturalist, controls the life force of everything surrounding her. Callum, a cold and calculating empath capable of ripping apart other's emotions, and Parisa, a telepath able to see the darkest secrets in a mind are terrifying on another level. And then there's Tristan, running from a violent upbringing, able to see things for what they truly are yet still in the dark to the true force of his own magic.

It was fun to finally pick up this hotly talked about book, and I really didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the draw of the story from the first few chapters, and I enjoyed how a glimpse of each character in the first part of the book really began to build up the story for the reader, and introduce the main players arranging themselves on the chess board of the society.

There is something very darkly sexy about this book, and while reading it I was always aware of this chemistry just simmering away beneath every page and words spoken between all the characters. I genuinely wondered at one point if I was being a bit of creep hoping some of them would hop into bed together, but then a threesome happened and I was happy and also satisfied that I was meant to be feeling all that chemistry. I like hos sexuality also feels to very fluid within the story as well, and no one character seems to fall in line with the straight and narrow. The book itself is all sorts of shades of grey, with the characters really thinking about life, the science behind it, what makes humans human, and the dimensions of the world itself - and through all of this the actions of the characters examine what makes people behave the way they do. Does ability determine your nature, or does nature determine ability?

There were definitely some speed bumps here for me as well. Unfortunately it was not a perfect read by any means. I did find myself just wanting more of well, everything. I felt like we giving a wishy washy way of understanding this world and the magic - they have magic, they can use it, and that's about that - whereas I would have liked to know more about there what and whys of how this all worked. The same with the society - it was just this figure up above for a lot of the time, and it was hard to know what was really going on most of the time.

While I enjoyed getting to know our characters with the separate POVs, I do also wonder if we really got to know them and I don't think we did. I felt like there was a space between the reader and the characters within the POVs - the only one I feel like we truly felt everything he was going through was Tristan and that's because from the start he was so troubled, and fragile and easily led by others (which was disappointing in its own way as I really felt like he was going to be a strong one!).

The pace of the book, and the timeline was also confusing. A whole year passed in this book, yet I can't tell what happened bar a few conversations, some sex scenes and a moment when time freezes. The timeline felt fast, but the pace of the book was slow. When I'm reading a book about magic, and anything revolving around magic lessons or education, I like to be there for it all. I want to see the curriculum, the book lists, the timetable - not glimpses here and there of a conversation within a lesson (though it's a stretch calling them lessons and the society feels more like PhD level where everyone just does their own research). The reader was never aware of the passing of time until it was dropped into a paragraph in the middle of a chapter that a couple of months had passed, and I'd feel confused and disappointed we didn't get to really see those months. Some of the moments in the POVs/chapters as well felt a bit scattered, and I think the book struggled to hold everything together exactly the way the author wanted. It felt a little like there were moments in the book that needed to be organised a little bit better, mapped out properly and controlled. I'm eager to see if this is better in book two.

The ending, while not really surprising to me, was definitely intriguing if not slightly rushed. I will pick up book two out of pure curiosity for what happens next. 

Meddy Chan is back, and so are her aunties! Following their previous escapades accidentally killing a guy, hiding his body at a wedding they were catering, and getting away with murder while also pushing Meddy back into the arms of her college love, surely the Aunties are done with the criminal lifestyle. But things are back to crazy when Meddy is set to marry Nathan, and she finds out the people she hired to run her wedding may in fact be mafia, and have their targets set on an unknown wedding guest. So it's now down to Meddy and her aunts to stop a literal murder this time - oh, and also get Meddy up the aisle!

I just love the Aunties! This book was no different to the first in the Aunties series and by that I mean it was absolutely insane and laugh out loud funny. Meddy and her Aunties - and the hijinks they all end up getting into - are so funny to follow, and you honestly never know what they're going to do or say next. The highlight in this was the Aunties all learning English slang from someone on Fivver to impress Nathan's parents ('Toodle Pip!').

With the first book, there was a point of no return where things just went from crazy to ridiculous, and while everything in these books have to be taken with a pinch of salt and looked at as pure entertainment rather than a realistic story. I also feel this book took a turn as well to the ridiculousness, but to be honest I have so much fun spending time with the Aunties, I don't care too much!

I did feel sad and frustrated for Meddy that her wedding ended up being such a nightmare - it felt like she was someone who really deserved a nice day and while it all ended up okay in the end, I wish the character had been able to actually experience more of her day rather than running around kidnapping people - yes, really.

As always, I appreciate learning so much more about Chinese-Indo culture in this book, and this one also looking at the varying experiences with Asian diaspora as represented in Meddy's family versus Nathan's family who couldn't be more different. I would have liked things between Annie and the Aunties to have been a bit more settled and at peace near the end but I guess we kind of got it. I don't know if this was a duology or there are plans for a trilogy because I would really love a Four Aunties and a Baby!