{"id":4108,"date":"2019-03-18T22:29:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T05:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/?p=4108"},"modified":"2019-03-18T22:29:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T05:29:20","slug":"review-the-bird-king-g-willow-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/03\/18\/review-the-bird-king-g-willow-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Bird King &#8211; G. Willow Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"bookreview\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/40642333.jpg?w=1280\" alt=\"Review: The Bird King &#8211; G. Willow Wilson\" title=\"Review: The Bird King &#8211; G. Willow Wilson\" class=\"ubb-cover-image alignright\"><strong>The Bird King<\/strong><br>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/authors\/g-willow-wilson\/\">G. Willow Wilson<\/a> <br><strong>Publisher:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/publishers\/grove-press\/\">Grove Press<\/a> <br><strong>Publication Date:<\/strong> March 12, 2019 <br><strong>Genres:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/genres\/fantasy\/\">Fantasy<\/a> <br><strong>Pages:<\/strong> 440 <br><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/sources\/netgalley\/\">NetGalley<\/a> <br><br><p>I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.<\/p>My rating: <span class=\"ubb-buy\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/llama-40.png?fit=31%2C40&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"One Star\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/llama-40.png?fit=31%2C40&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"One Star\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/llama-40.png?fit=31%2C40&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"One Star\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/llama-40.png?fit=31%2C40&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"One Star\"><\/span><br><br><br><blockquote class=\"ubb-synopsis\"><p>Set in 1491 during the reign of the last sultanate in the Iberian peninsula, <em>The Bird King<\/em> is the story of Fatima, the only remaining Circassian concubine to the sultan, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker. <\/p>\n<p>Hassan has a secret--he can draw maps of places he's never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan's surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan's gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls?<\/p>\n<p>As Fatima and Hassan traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, <i>The Bird King<\/i> asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><center><span class=\"ubb-buy\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/080212903X\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/amazon.png?w=1280\" alt=\"Amazon\"><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/book\/the-bird-king\/id1449875006?mt=11\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/apple.png?w=1280\" alt=\"Apple\"><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/the-bird-king-g-willow-wilson\/1128978849?ean=9780802129031&st=AFF&2sid=Goodreads,%20Inc_2227948_NA&sourceId=AFFGoodreads,%20Inc#\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/bn.png?w=1280\" alt=\"Barnes & Noble\"><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/us\/en\/ebook\/the-bird-king\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/kobo.png?w=1280\" alt=\"Kobo\"><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/book\/9780802129031\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/indiebound.png?w=1280\" alt=\"Indiebound\"><\/a><\/span><\/center><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/43686067-the-bird-king\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/widget_logo.gif?w=1280\" alt=\"Goodreads\"><\/a><br><\/center><center><p class=\"ubb-buy\"><div class=\"ubb-icon-tags\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/book-tags\/4stars\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"80\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/categories_0000s_0003_4-stars.png?fit=80%2C100&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"4 stars icon\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/book-tags\/fantasy\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"80\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/categories_0000s_0011_fantasy.png?fit=80%2C100&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"fantasy icon\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/reviews\/book-tags\/muslim\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"80\" height=\"101\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/categories_0000s_0002_muslim.png?fit=80%2C101&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"muslim\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/p><\/div><\/center><br>\t\t<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n\t\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n\t\"@type\":\"Review\",\n\t\"datePublished\": \"2019-03-19T05:29:20+00:00\",\n\t\"description\": \"\\r\\n\\r\\nContent warnings: \\r\\n\\r\\nThis is a difficult bird (ha!) to categorize - it's a lyrically written historical fantasy, set during the last days of Muslim Iberia and in a lot of ways it's more abou\",\n\t\"publisher\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Organization\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"Llama Reads Books\"\t},\n\t\"url\": \"https:\\\/\\\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\\\/blog\\\/index.php\\\/2019\\\/03\\\/18\\\/review-the-bird-king-g-willow-wilson\\\/\",\n\t\"itemReviewed\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Book\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"The Bird King\",\n\t\t\"author\": {\n\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\t\"name\": \"G. Willow Wilson\",\n\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"\"\t\t},\n\t\t\"isbn\": \"\"\t},\n\t\"author\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"ReadingLlama\",\n\t\t\"sameAs\": \"https:\\\/\\\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\\\/blog\\\/\"\t},\n\t\"reviewRating\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Rating\",\n\t\t\"ratingValue\": 4,\n\t\t\"bestRating\": \"5\"\n\t}\n}\n\n\n\n\t\t<\/script>\n\t\t<hr \/>\n<p>Content warnings: <span class=\"ubb-spoiler\"><a class=\"ubb-view-spoil\">View Spoiler &raquo;<\/a><span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"ubb-thespoil\">slavery (including sex), torture, attempted rape, starvation (and other deprivations of war) <a class=\"ubb-hide-spoil\" style=\"cursor: hand; cursor: pointer;\">&laquo; Hide Spoiler<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is a difficult bird (ha!) to categorize &#8211; it&#8217;s a lyrically written historical fantasy, set during the last days of Muslim Iberia and in a lot of ways it&#8217;s more about the ideas than the plot. \u00a0I&#8217;m a firm believer that each reader&#8217;s relationship with a book is highly personal and may diverge strongly with what the author intended, and this is certainly one of those books. \u00a0The author is Muslim and this book is steeped in Islamic folklore, so considering that I&#8217;m Christian, I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;ve missed large amounts of meaning, but I still found it fascinatingly deep.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI can get us to Qaf,\u201d he said. \u201cI can get us to the isle of the Bird King. That\u2019s where we should go. That\u2019s where we\u2019ll be safe.\u201d<br \/>\nFatima closed her eyes and attempted to muster her self-restraint.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a game, Hassan,\u201d she said as gently as she could. \u201cWe were bored children shut up in a crumbling palace, so we made it up. Bit by bit. We made up a story.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cBut that\u2019s just it,\u201d said Hassan, leaning toward her. \u201cWhat if our stories are like my maps? What is a story but the map of an idea? There is a secret in the poem of Al Attar\u2014we made it into a joke because joking felt better than despairing. But perhaps that is the secret. The Bird King is real, and we are his subjects.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fatima is a concubine of the last sultan in Iberia, and for her whole life the sultanate has been at war with Spain and losing. \u00a0So it&#8217;s perhaps no great surprise when Spanish envoys arrive to negotiate their surrender &#8211; but it is an unpleasant surprise when the sultan agrees to give up her best friend, Hassan, the palace mapmaker, accused of being a sorcerer by the Inquisition. \u00a0Hassan has the ability to draw maps of places he&#8217;s never seen, and bend space in interesting ways with the maps he draws, something that he&#8217;s put to use many times to give Fatima a view outside of the confines of the palace harem. \u00a0Left with no other options, Fatima and Hassan escape the palace by night with the help of a jinn. \u00a0But with everything around them now belonging to Spain, where can they hope to go? \u00a0By either madness or genius, Hassan draws a map to the mythical island of Qaf, the supposed homeland of the king of the birds according to a partial poem that&#8217;s become a sort of touchstone to both Fatima and Hassan. \u00a0Can such a place exist? \u00a0Can they find it? \u00a0And would a runaway concubine and a magical mapmaker even be welcome there?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cNo one offers me peace or safety except to keep me for themselves,\u201d she said aloud. \u201cNo one reaches out to me except to take what little I have.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>First off &#8211; yes, the pacing is slow, and if you were to sum up the plot it&#8217;s basically: Fatima and Hassan escape, they almost get captured, they escape, almost get captured again, rinse, repeat. \u00a0However, it&#8217;s not so much what&#8217;s happening as how Fatima is reacting to it, how she grows and changes from the girl who&#8217;s never been outside the palace walls, a caged bird, to a woman in charge of her own destiny. \u00a0The book starts off mostly reading as historical fiction and then, one magic map or jinn or eldritch creature at a time, starts becoming more fantastical until it&#8217;s pretty solidly a fantasy at the end. \u00a0Ms. Wilson has an incredible skill with words, as well, and the lyrical quality lends to the fairy tale-feel as well. \u00a0Fatima is an interesting character &#8211; a pampered slave who completely lacks the skill to dissemble, but still possesses a deep-seated sense of righteousness and courage.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cNo one can choose who God loves, or change who God loves,\u201d said Vikram. \u201cNot even the Inquisition.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Considering it stars two Muslim characters who are pursued by the Spanish Inquisition, it&#8217;s no surprise that religion and the conflict between Islam and Christianity is a major (and timely) topic. And while you&#8217;d expect the Muslims to come out of it much shinier than the Catholics, given that it&#8217;s from Fatima&#8217;s point of view, the strengths and weaknesses of each religion are deftly explored. \u00a0It&#8217;s no surprise that so much of it, for our characters, boils down to &#8220;divisions used by those &#8216;above&#8217; us to grind down those &#8216;below.'&#8221; \u00a0While this is something that Fatima has lived all her life, it&#8217;s demoralizing to find it still true outside the palace walls as a free woman, and to realize that the same applies even to Hassan as a gay man with a strange talent. \u00a0At one point, the jinn tells Fatima, paraphrased, &#8220;fear only God&#8221; and, to me, that was the main takeaway of the book &#8211; regimes and religions may change, but, in the end, it&#8217;s God who matters, and the best a person can do is live how they think God would intend them to.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI do know how the poem ends,\u201d he said. \u201cBut your poem, the one you and Hassan have been telling to one another, has diverged from it so profoundly that it doesn\u2019t matter. There is no longer any real poem, or rather, one is now as real as the other.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cThere is so a real poem,\u201d said Fatima, annoyed. \u201cThe real <em>Conference of the Birds<\/em> was written by someone, by a real person. He had certain intentions. I want to know what they were. He wrote the poem for a reason, and the reason matters.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cDoes it?\u201d Vikram stretched his toes, revealing a row of claws as black as obsidian. \u201cOnce a story leaves the hands of its author, it belongs to the reader. And the reader may see any number of things, conflicting things, contradictory things. The author goes silent. If what he<em> intended<\/em> mattered so very much, there would be no need for inquisitions and schisms and wars. But he is silent, silent. The author of the poem is silent, the author of the world is silent. We are left with no intentions but our own.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot else to unpack &#8211; Fatima&#8217;s relationship with the sultan&#8217;s mother, who&#8217;s been her strongest maternal figure in her life, though still her owner; the identity of the mythical island &#8211; is it Muslim Qaf or Catholic Antillia?; her relationship with Hassan. \u00a0Oh, and Luz! \u00a0Luz is a fantastic villain, and I was absolutely tickled pink that the female heroine was balanced by a female villain. \u00a0While I&#8217;m certainly no Islamic scholar, I found the choice of names interesting. \u00a0The historical Fatima (daughter of the prophet Muhammed) is frequently given the title &#8220;Zahra,&#8221; which means &#8220;shining,&#8221; and to have this Fatima face off against someone whose name means &#8220;light&#8221; was certainly an intentional choice on Ms. Wilson&#8217;s part. \u00a0Fatima&#8217;s fascination with Luz &#8211; even when she knows that fascination is harmful &#8211; was simultaneously nerve-wracking and enthralling. \u00a0She&#8217;s a complicated, complex creation and wanting to see her and Fatima interact again was what kept me reading through the first half of the book. \u00a0Vikram, the jinn, was also a fascinating character. \u00a0Utterly inhuman, tricksy, and motivated by his own difficult to understand desires, he still manages to distill many of the book&#8217;s lessons and themes down for Fatima and Hassan.<\/p>\n<p>I think, in the end, the strength of the book was also its weakest point for me. \u00a0I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory, and closed the book still trying to figure out what exactly the author meant to say &#8211; as Vikram says above, the reader is &#8220;left with no intentions but our own.&#8221; \u00a0It&#8217;s definitely a novel feeling, considering how most books are much more straightforward, written with the intent to make a reader feel a certain way, think a certain way, but it&#8217;s not particularly comfortable. \u00a0Whatever else can be said, I will definitely be thinking about this book for a very long time.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, this is a slow-paced historical fantasy, well-written and big on the ideas. \u00a0I&#8217;d highly recommend it to anyone looking for something unique and thought-provoking!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Content warnings: This is a difficult bird (ha!) to categorize &#8211; it&#8217;s a lyrically written historical fantasy, set during the last days of Muslim Iberia and in a lot of ways it&#8217;s more about the ideas than the plot. \u00a0I&#8217;m a firm believer that each reader&#8217;s relationship with a book is highly personal and may&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"book-tag":[161,172,577],"class_list":["post-4108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","book-author-g-willow-wilson","book-publisher-grove-press","book-genre-fantasy","book-source-netgalley","book-format-ebook","book-tag-4stars","book-tag-fantasy","book-tag-muslim"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/40642333.jpg?fit=259%2C400&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"ReadingLlama","author_link":"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/author\/readingllama\/"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review: The Bird King - G. Willow Wilson - Llama Reads Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.llamareadsbooks.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/03\/18\/review-the-bird-king-g-willow-wilson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: The Bird King - G. 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