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Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

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All the Little Bird-Hearts: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Hardcover – 2 Mar. 2023

by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (Author)

4.1 300 ratings

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*LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023*
'Delicate and strong... I loved it' Maggie O'Farrell'
'Darkly vivacious' Guardian
'Glorious. Unforgettable' Melissa Harrison
'A keen eye... immaculate' Financial Times
'A triumph' Daily Telegraph

Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly - her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home.

Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday's book. Soon they are in and out of each others' homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has precisely what Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.

Review

A novel both delicate and strong, illuminating the disturbing and the extraordinary to be found in the every day. Sunday is a beguiling and beguiled narrator, and her story an examination of the disjunction between humans' private and public selves. I loved it -- Maggie O'Farrell

Lloyd Barlow makes her wary, vigilant, poetic voice the star in a mesmerising debut ― Guardian

Lloyd-Barlow's prose sings... a beautiful, bittersweet debut ― Daily Telegraph

What a glorious, unforgettable character Vita is. And I loved Sunday's voice too, so unique, right from the off. It showed me things about autism that will stay with me. A genuinely valuable book, but more importantly I enjoyed being inside its world -- Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley

A memorably authentic, at times painfully affecting, portrait of a singular woman navigating life's challenges and still finding her way to happiness on her own terms ― Daily Mail

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow's is a distinct and poetic new voice. This novel about the complex desires behind our closest relationships is undercut with the darkness of Sicilian folklore: the fisherman who promises away his child; the lover who is a wolf; a caged magpie; burning fields -- Clare Pollard, poet and author of Delphi

Funny, lyrical, deft and devastating. Full of longing and love -- Amy Sackville, author of Painter to the King

At once sharply perceptive and lyrically written, All The Little Bird-Hearts is an emotional and though-provoking exploration of autism ― CultureFly

Moving, funny and lyrical ― iPaper

Expect to be moved ― Sainsburys Magazine

Scintillating... a tense and subtly nuanced look at an intense friendship between two women -- Elizabeth Morris ― Crib Notes

Book Description

An unforgettable literary debut exploring motherhood, vulnerability, and the way the world closes ranks against those it considers to be different

About the Author

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, and has extensive personal, professional, and academic experience relating to autism. Her debut novel, ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS, was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Like her protagonist Sunday in ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS, Viktoria is autistic. She has presented her doctoral research internationally, most recently speaking at Harvard University on autism and literary narrative. Viktoria lives with her husband and children on the coast of north-east Kent.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tinder Press
Publication date

2 Mar. 2023
Dimensions

16.2 x 3 x 23.4 cm
ISBN-10

1472288009
ISBN-13

978-1472288004
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From the Publisher

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tinder Press (2 Mar. 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1472288009
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1472288004
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.2 x 3 x 23.4 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 145,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 632 in Autism Spectrum Disorder
- 737 in Neurology & Clinical Neurophysiology
- 10,995 in Humorous Fiction

Customer reviews:
4.1 300 ratings

About the author

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Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

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Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent. Like her protagonist, Sunday, in ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS, Viktoria is autistic. She has presented her doctoral research internationally, most recently speaking at Harvard University on autism and literary narrative. Viktoria lives with her husband and children on the Kent coast.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

300 global ratings

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Vicky

Truly original.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2023

Verified Purchase

A touching and beautifully written book. A compelling read. And a refreshingly honest and poetic description of female autism. Highly recommended.

Helpful

Euphemia Black

Unusual and enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 August 2023

Verified Purchase

This is the story of an autistic woman, Sunday, by an autistic author. It is written from Sunday's point of view as she struggles to understand how the world and the people around her work. When Vita, a new neighbour, comes along, her world is shaken and heartbreaking consequences ensue. My interest did wane at times and I skipped some passages, but this is an unusual and enjoyable read. beautifully written. The epilogue pleased me very much.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Melanie

A great character driven story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2024

'All the Little Bird Hearts' by Victoria Lloyd-Barlow is a delight of a book and will grab you from the beginning.

Sunday lives with her daughter Dolly. They both live their lives but everything changes when the glamorous couple called Vita and Rollo move in next door and life is never the same again.

The characters in this book are so well written. Sunday is a gem of a character. Sunday lives her life a little differently and has particular ways to do things. How this is impacted by Dolly and then Vita and Rollo is well described and adds further dimension to the story.

The characters really make this story, which is actually chilling but still a great story to read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2023

Verified Purchase

I was pulled into the characters and their tangled lives so forcefully I couldn't stop reading. I love the honesty and depth of Sunday and her inability to be anything other than hersrlf.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Vita was a great character

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 September 2023

Sunday lives alone with her daughter, Dolly, Vita and her husband Rollo move next door to them for the summer. Sunny lives a solitary life but becomes fascinated by the exuberant Vita who pulls Sunny and Dolly into her life.

It was interesting to read a book written fully from the perspective of someone with autism. The idea of how much they try to fit into the world and how this is often under appreciated really comes through.

I really liked the character of Vita, though I’m not sure I was supposed to like her that much! She had such energy and thought ultimately a very selfish person she could also show great kindness to others. I didn’t really appreciate the ‘any woman without a child clearly wants to steal a child’ trope but the ending made-up for that a little bit.

I think this will be a book that I think about a lot in the future and especially about Sunday and how she navigates the world around her and the acceptance that she needed.

One person found this helpful

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TripFiction

Novel set in the LAKE DISTRICT

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 October 2023

4.5*

This novel is set in the Lake District, but with a Sicilian – or South Italian – slant. Sunny is the character at the heart, living with her 16 year old daughter Dolly, and Vita and her husband Rols move into the adjoining property and soon a connection between the two households is formed.

Sunny’s story is told through a lens of neurodivergence, a very realistic rendering given the author herself is on the autism spectrum. We learn of Sunny’s careful management of food (which essentially has to be white) and her laboured reading of gestures and expressions on other people’s faces, so that she can inform her responses and make connections. She emulates Vita’s upper crust vowels (perhaps this aspect is a little on the repetitive side) to experience how they sound as she rolls the words around in her own mouth. She turns to a 1950s guide of etiquette, to wit “Etiquette for Ladies” by Edith Ogilvy, so that she has a chance of some social integration. Sunny is a woman “..without a social language …” and carefully builds an array of crutches and resources on which she can rely.

She references Sicilian mores and superstitions that she has gleaned from a book of Sicilian folk tales, which has accompanied her for much of her life (and these utterances irritated her erstwhile husband no end): how to fend off the malocchio (evil eye) or the power of fish when pregnant …

She bathes in the proximity of her new found friend and enjoys a Friday night meal with Vita and Rols, where they dine off Harrods delicacies brought up from London by Rols. Vita is a flamboyant dresser and extrovert, but gradually an unease settles over the reader as Sunny becomes more enmeshed in the couple’s life. Sunny’s daughter, Dolly, basks in the affection and attention she garners from Vita and she begins to turn a critical eye on her mother and her behaviour.

This is a hugely textured novel where the senses are pivotal for the main character and to some extent for the reader. The soil on the farm where she works (which belongs to her ex-husband’s family), passes through her hands enabling tactile appreciation, and the odours that surround her in daily life aid her understanding of her world. Her uncertain hovering on the sidelines can be poignant and perplexing, but she has a stoicism that serves her well.

When I picked up this novel I was not sure if I would enjoy it but Sunny’s open-hearted nature is beguiling and heart wrenching. This is a beautifully written novel.

2 people found this helpful

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