Winter Birds

by Jamie Langston Turner

This is one of those books that I didn't even read the premise. I just picked it up at the library and checked it out. Sometimes I end up really sorry that I did that. In this case, I was glad of the end result.

This book is the story of an 80 year old woman and her internal journey to finish out her life. She is a bitter woman, still dealing with the betrayal of the one person who she thought she knew the best. She moves in with her nephew and his wife to finish out her life, assuming that they took her in only because of the promise of money at the end of her life.

When we first meet Aunt Sophie she is a recluse. She keeps to herself for the most part, and doesn't even hardly talk. She stays in her room almost all the time, and measures time according to the re-runs that are on TV at the moment. She ventures out only when the rest of the house is empty and has a morbid curiosity in the funeral home across the street. It takes a long while, but eventually, Sophie opens up a bit to the people in her life and discovers that there's more to the rest of her life than simply giving up and dying.

This book took so long to unfold. It took a very long time for Sophie to unfold herself and share all her thoughts with us, the reader, before anything actually happened. Overall, I did like the story. The story of redemption and starting over. And the truth that you're never too old for a new beginning, I like that very much. For my preference though, I would have preferred a quicker pace. This book would be a great beach read, or something to read leisurely and casually over the course of time. It's definitely not a rip-roaring adventure, and not one to just sit down and read in an afternoon. It takes a little bit of time to develop, but over time I did come to grow fond of Aunt Sophie and her family- and I loved her thoughts about her nephew. Her nephew seems to think he has the answer for everything, and she never lets on to him what she really thinks of some of the things he says. Getting into Aunt Sophie's head provides a few laughs along the way.

Recommended with some time involved. Allow this one to digest a bit, and I think this one is also geared more towards women than men.