Softcover

ISBN 10: 039334259X ISBN 13: 9780393342598

Verlag: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012

“A full-course meal, a rich, complex and memorable story that will leave you lingering gratefully at [Abu-Jaber’s] table.”―Ron Charles, Washington Post

At thirteen, Felice Muir ran away from home to punish herself for some horrible thing she had done―leaving a hole in the hearts of her pastry-chef mother, her real estate attorney father, and her foodie-entrepreneurial brother. After five years of scrounging for food, drugs, and shelter on Miami Beach, Felice is now turning eighteen, and she and the family she left behind must reckon with the consequences of her actions―and make life-affirming choices about what matters to them most, now and in the future.

About the Author:

Diana Abu-Jaber is the award-winning author of four novels, including Crescent, and two memoirs, Life Without a Recipe and The Language of Baklava. She and her family divide time between Miami, Florida, and Portland, Oregon.

Review:

With Birds of Paradise, Abu-Jaber has made an amazing, gigantic leap into rare air, that hazy stratosphere we jokingly call The Big Time. Her novel is that worthy, and that beautiful.--Christine Selk (09/15/2011)

Diana Abu-Jaber s gorgeous novel explores the waysa modern family can break down and be reborn. She writes with a precise, almostpoetic distillation of feeling, heightened in contrast to the ripe, exuberantlandscape and the unsettled feelings of a family in limbo.--Amy Driscoll

The Muirs absorbing story builds to a thoroughly satisfying climax.--Sue Corbett

This Jordanian American author writes about food so enticingly that her books should be published on sheets of phyllo dough. Birds of Paradise contains her most mouthwatering writing ever, but it s no light after-dinner treat. This is a full-course meal, a rich, complex and memorable story that will leave you lingering gratefully at her table.--Ron Charles

Miami comes alive . .. the ambitions and accents of its inhabitants become as impossible to resistas a postprandial siesta in the tropics. --Cristina Garcia

It is Birds of Paradise 's neither predictable nor merely haphazard momentum and its rich cast of characters that make us feel we re in deliciously capable hands. --Bliss Broyard

It is Birds of Paradise's neither predictable nor merely haphazard momentum and its rich cast of characters that make us feel we're in deliciously capable hands. --Bliss Broyard

Brilliant... Birds of Paradise is likely to add further luster to [Abu-Jaber's] literary reputation. ... With her evocative prose and accomplished style, Diana Abu-Jaber's Birds of Paradise explores with wisdom and insight the emotional fallout of a shattering family crisis. Yet in this profoundly moving novel, she also manages to unearth the inherent, cathartic beauty of family and individual survival in this complex and perilous new century.

It is Birds of Paradise s neither predictable nor merely haphazard momentum and its rich cast of characters that make us feel we re in deliciously capable hands. --Bliss Broyard"

An unusually satisfying read. --Susanna Sonnenberg"

Miami comes alive . . . the ambitions and accents of its inhabitants become as impossible to resist as a postprandial siesta in the tropics. --Cristina Garcia"

Brilliant Birds of Paradise is likely to add further luster to [Abu-Jaber s] literary reputation. With her evocative prose and accomplished style, Diana Abu-Jaber s Birds of Paradise explores with wisdom and insight the emotional fallout of a shattering family crisis. Yet in this profoundly moving novel, she also manages to unearth the inherent, cathartic beauty of family and individual survival in this complex and perilous new century. "

A meticulous, deeply moving portrayal of imperfect human beings struggling to do right Glorious descriptions, both of nature and Avis s mouthwatering pastry, offset yet intensify the jagged emotions of the Muirs. "

Abu-Jaber makes us wonder about more that what will happen to one girl with a guilty secret. What, after all, does it mean to be a family? Is love really exchangeable, malleable ? We can t help turning pages full of stunning prose to find out. --Sarah Nelson"