I struggled with Lessons in Birdwatching. I started reading it in early October during a high-stress time, put it down at 64% completed, and picked it back up last week. At only 260 pages, if I wasn’t vibing with it, I still should have been able to cruise through it and get it done (I only DNF if it’s making me angry). This book was dense. There was lots of world-building, character backstory and interactions. Despite that, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!! There were so many things left hanging or not fully explained or so much detail given in one area and not much in others. I’d have loved to see this as a longer book.
It did leave me unsettled. There’s some graphic and taboo violence. There’s abuse of people with diminished capacity (and when you think it’s terrible, don’t worry, it gets worse). There’s gratuitous sexual violence. There’s corrupt government and religious cults. There are competing factions. There are so many things in this book, and it lures you into thinking it’s about 4 or 5 university students doing a work-study. HA! Not a chance.
A lot of characters were introduced very quickly. I struggled to remember who people were and what was going on in the first few chapters. This is partially my fault; I was reading in short snippets and didn’t have the attention span for something heavy. It stayed with me when I finished the book’s last third.
To be honest, I’m not sure if I really liked Lessons in Birdwatching. A friend recommended it to me because he saw it as a political commentary. I can definitely see the parallels. The military leader is subverted, the 2nd in command has an agenda, over half the population is diminished, and the locals in charge are out to exploit it. Meanwhile, the young people are trying to do what’s right, follow the rules and save people. (Now that I posted it, he’s mentioned that he was referring to communism and yup, that makes a lot more sense than what I was grasping at)
Lessons in Birdwatching book had no fluff. It’s very dense, moving from one plot point to the next. I’d have enjoyed it more if it had been expanded into a larger, more subtly and nuanced story. That was not the point of the book, though, and it’s going to leave me unsettled for a while.