Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Mina revealed to Oscar that she was bisexual, vegetarian, and taking medication during their first date. In any case, he wed her. a problem to be solved. Yes, she had bad days, but they weren’t too bad. But now, perhaps not so much. Late at night, Mina is standing on the George Washington Bridge, gazing over the edge, when a patrol car approaches. The policeman doesn’t trust her despite her best efforts to convince him that she isn’t ready to leap. She requests that Oscar pick her up.
Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
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Oscar plans a relocation with the concept that Mina should leave New York for London, where she can “understand the layout of this grief.” The classicist Mina makes lists to help her deal with her mental health problems while she is in London. Penelope, Psyche, and Leda are examples of women who lived: exclusively in one of the stories, Iphigenia. a list of her favourite things, including enamel coffee mugs. What else, then? She, at last, discovers a ray of hope in Phoebe, and attraction and friendship grow until Oscar and Mina’s complicated relationship is put to the test.
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s gorgeously crafted novel, Starling Days, by a singularly gifted young author, is a complex and compelling work of fiction about love, mythology, mental illness, Japanese beer, and the times we need to seek out milder psychological climates. It is written in exquisite prose rich with lightly ironic empathy.
Mina informed Oscar she was bisexual, vegetarian, and taking medication when they first met. The decision to marry her was his. He receives a call from the NYPD six months later asking him to pick her up at the George Washington Bridge. The police believed she was planning to leap. They decide to temporarily relocate to London in an effort to aid in her recovery. The plan is for Mina to concentrate on her investigation for a paper on “Women Who Survived.” In reality, Oscar becomes extremely stressed out as a result of everything that transpired during his brief marriage to Mina, and he needs a break. At the same time, though, as she struggles to cope with her grief, she begins to feel attracted to Phoebe, a childhood acquaintance.
In this book, the primary characters are palpable. The book is more of a study on mental health and how it can exacerbate relationships that are already difficult to navigate. Although the plot wasn’t particularly interesting, I couldn’t put the book down. It had excellent writing. Beautiful linguistic use by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan goes much beyond what the story actually required. In fact, I underlined the dedication in my Kindle app before I ever -started- the novel. I was smitten. Everything sums it up just right.
