boy, snow, bird. helen oyeyemi. (214)

i had seen helen oyeyemi's boy, snow, bird on amazon and the cover caught my eye.  later, i saw it as an ebook when i downloaded the app the library used.  however, i finally considered reading it when my friend juliana got a copy at bookcon.  then while browsing the beale library while waiting for my aunt and uncle i was surprised to find it with their new releases, i figured it would be out on request. i decided to amazon it's description, and came across this:

As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as “gloriously unsettling… evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson,” and already one of the year’s most widely acclaimed novels

garcia marquez!!!! haruki murakami!!! toni morrison!!! i had to check it out!!!

though i will say it did have some elements of the authors mentioned the writing did not fill me with whimsy like garcia marquez and murkami.  nor did i connect emotionally like i did with morrison's characters.  however, this was still an enjoyable read, my expectations had been raised due to the review.

*****spoilers beyond this points stop if you plan on reading this!!!!******

boy, snow, bird is set in the 40's, the first part is the story of boy novak who at the age of eighteen ran away from her (yes, she is female) abusive father.  her father worked as a rat catcher and was demented randomly hitting her and once leaving her to be attacked by rats in the basement.

boy ended up in a small town, flax hill.  at first boy was complete out of place in flax hill but soon made it her home.  she ended up marrying a widower, arturo whitman.  initially, they did not like each other but eventually he fell in love with her.  boy, however, married based on a strong connection she felt with his daughter, snow.  snow was a beautiful little girl and boy was entranced by her until boy became pregnant.

if you go on goodreads, a lot of reviewers bitched about boy, snow, bird, not being a worthy play on snow white.  i can see the strings that connect the fairy tale to the novel and those that want more, go watch abc's once upon a time.  

after the new baby is born, bird,  boy became a wicked stepmother.  with the birth of bird, arturo's family secret was revealed.  they were black, they had been passing as white in town though some individuals knew the truth.  bird did not have fair skin like her sister, snow.  as a result, the family treated her differently, they did not revere bird like snow.  also their reverence for snow came to light, it was not simply her beauty but the fact that she looked white.   boy began to resent snow for her whiteness and eventually sent her away to live wuth her aunt clara.  clara, arturo's sister, like bird, had a darker complexion and to avoid her revealing the family secret, she was sent away.  boy unable to deal with bird's complexion called clara so that she could send . . . snow away!  i was surprised by this, i thought boy was going to send away bird (which isn't any better).  boy sent away snow becaming an evil stepmother, she started to loathe snow based on the way everyone catered to her, just like snow white's evil stepmother!  

what broke my heart was that even though snow was revered this did not change how she treated bird.  snow was the only one that loved bird unconditionally.  it was so sweet to see snow being loving and affection toward her sister.  boy and arturo's mother, olivia, did not truly love bird and kept her at a distance.  snow was sent away because boy was jealous of the treatment she received and knew that her daughter would never be an equal.  this placed olivia as the enemy but really it was boy because she did not see bird as worthy of anyone's love.  snow was a constant reminder of bird's "otherness" and so boy had her sent away.

the middle part of the book was told from bird's perspective, who is now in middle school. from her we learn just how self-loathing olivia whitman was, not only racist towards blacks but also distant from her granddaughter.  bird was aware of her grandma's dislike for her, but thankful she was not completely damaged by it.

in this middle section, bird discovered that snow wrote to boy and later bird but boy never passed them on.  bird decided to start writing to her sister and they exchange a handful of letters between each other.  in their letters, we see the magical realism of garica marquez and murakami.  bird shared how she spoke to spiders and calmed them down once they heard humans knew the stories of ansai.  they also shared fairy tales back and forth about la belle capuchine.  bird sharing the story that her grandmother, olivia, fired for telling her.  it was the story of a slave that looked like her owner.  the slave was given privileges due to her likeness and this made her turn against the slaves.  one day a man came to free the slaves and locked the family up, when he came to release the slave, he mistaken the owner as the slave.  the slave asked another slave to help identify her but he turned his back on her.  while snow's la belle capuchine is beautiful but dangerous.  she has a garden that is deadly.

the girls also discovered that both are not always in mirrors.  boy also had issues with mirrors, always captivated by herself in them.  mirrors are utilized to symbolize identity.  snow can not see herself because her completely self is never seen by others, everyone thinks she is white but she is not.  bird can not see herself completely for the same reason, people take her only for her exterior and not her interior.  the reason for boy's mirror obsession is not revealed until the end.

in the second section, snow finally returned home and the tension and stress of this was discussed.  a surprise visitor also appeared in this portion.  frank, boy's father, came and took bird not realizing she was his granddaughter. he then told bird how boy almost did not live, for after birth she was sick.  he also told her that boy was evil.

the last section has a crazy surprise ending.  mia, boy's friend, discovered that frank is actually boy's mom!  it is discovered that frances was a lesbian and raped by a man.  she became pregnant and lived in a shelter but was eventually kicked out.  then one day as explained by mia, she looked in the mirror and there was frank.  she then became frank.

i was not anticipating this at all, i was expecting boy's mother to turn out to be black, not that her father was transgender.  i admired oyeyemi for this plot twist drawing parallels between racial prejudice and sexual orientation prejudice.  though it was disheartening to see people on goodreads bash the ending though i think it's their own fear of  transgenders.  a surprise twist was not unexpected, as mentioned i was anticipating her mother being black so it's not like a twist could ruin it.  the negativity has to be the fact that her mother was transgender.  most people thought it was ridiculous and unbelievable but i think it is plausible, transgender people have existed thoughout all of history, but it's just that now with the lgbt community being more visible that everyone is coming out of the closet.  i mean time magazine recently did a cover about transgender with the cover title "the transgender tipping point". i thought it was an interesting twist and did not lessen the story.

in the end, boy decided to rescue her mother.  boy enlisted snow, bird, and mia to help her save her mother.  the story ended with their leaving flax hill for nyc.  though these is no resolution i believe that they save frank.  having a family that sees you for who you truly are and accepts and loves you, fixes everything.