Helen Macdonald's world is thrown askew by the sudden death of her father. An enthusiastic ornithologist, she decides that this is the perfect time to procure and train a falcon. This book details that journey.
The one redeeming feature of this book is that it is exceptionally well-written, with some beautiful prose that captured her experiences. I suspect this is the reason why the book has proven so popular, and has won awards.
I struggled to find anything else good to say about this book. I read it for a book club meeting, and if I hadn't felt compelled to push on through for that reason, I would have given up within the first twenty pages. I found the story-within-a-story-within-a-story structure really started to grate after a while. I have extremely limited interest in matters ornithological, admittedly, but I found the characters so peculiarly obsessed with their feathered friends that the story seemed quite sinister at times.
A rather fowl reading experience.
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