The Nature of Small Birds

      BOOK REVIEW:   In 1975, three thousand children were airlifted out of Saigon to be adopted into Western homes. When one of those children announces her plans to return to Vietnam to find her birth mother, her loving adopted family is suddenly thrown back to the events surrounding her unconventional arrival in their lives. 

     Mindy's father grapples with the tension between holding on too tightly and letting his daughter spread her wings. Her mother undergoes the emotional roller coaster inherent in the adoption of a child from a war-torn country, discovering the joy hidden amid the difficulties. And Mindy and her sister struggle to find the strength to accept each other as they both discover who they truly are. 

     Told through three distinct voices in three compelling timelines, The Nature of Small Birds is a hopeful story that explores the meaning of family far beyond genetic code. 

     MY REVIEW:   This story is about Mindy Matthews, who came to America from Vietnam in the Babylift operation when she was 4 years old. The book is written from three different points in her life, and none of them are from her perspective. 1975 is read from her mother's eye when she joins the family. 1988 centers on her sister Sonny while they're in high school. And 2013 is set on her father, and read as current day, with Mindy being 42 years old. It is an interesting way to tell a story about a person without having that person be the main character. I think I would have preferred if there was less jumping between the years, or if the chapters had been longer. It was  little difficult to get accustomed to the characters with short bursts of time. But it did keep the story moving. I wish there had been more about Mindy's life when she was first adopted, or even more about searching for her Vietnamese family. In the current setting, she is newly divorced (which was pretty disappointing to find in a Christian book), and this seems like a distraction from that.  Her family is having a harder time being ok with it than they thought they would. This book has a theme of letting go, but also of letting in. Mindy was accepted as an adopted daughter, and now she is encouraged to pursue her birth family. There are a few other instances of people letting others in or letting them go, and some that don't learn. 

     My favorite parts of the story are when Mindy was 4 and learning English, the eccentric lady the girls worked for in high school, and Mindy's grandfather as he sneaks sugar past his domineering wife who insists that coffee must be drunk black or not at all. I would say that there was less of God's involvement in their lives than I wished; it didn't seem like they turned to Him much for guidance in their lives, even really in the big things they faced.  

I received a copy of this book from REVELL and was not required to write a positive review.