Read This Book…

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, All the Little Bird-Hearts has filled my bookish social media feeds. And now — finally! — it’s available in the United States. Set in 1988, the novel follows Sunday, a middle-aged autistic woman living her neurodivergent life long before autism became more commonly diagnosed, particularly in girls and women. On many days, foods with color are too loud. Non-carbonated beverages are hard to swallow. And some days, she wakes up and knows that it’s going to be one of her “silent days.”

Sunday has a neurotypical teenage daughter named Dolly, who’s often embarrassed by her mother’s “eccentricities.” When Vita and Rollo move into the neighborhood, Dolly is smitten, mesmerized by adults who usually live in London, far from Sunday and Dolly’s home in the Lake District. As Dolly becomes closer with their new neighbors, Sunday feels as if Dolly is ashamed of her, as if Dolly has found a home with “normal” people.

Sunday’s experience of feeling on the outside of social interactions is so visceral. As you read, you can feel Sunday’s feeling of otherness as she tries to rifle through her brain trying to figure out how direct the people around her are during conversations. Oftentimes, she’s mentally flipping through an etiquette book she’s memorized, using it as a guide through social interactions. During lulls in conversation, Sunday pulls out a fun fact from Southern Italian culture, a subject she’s researched for countless hours.

Like her protagonist, author Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow is autistic and uses her lived experience and her research in autism to inform her fiction. Her personal understanding of autism shines through the protagonist. Sunday’s feelings on the inside are complex, just like anyone else’s. But for Sunday, she expresses those feelings differently on the outside. Ultimately, this attention to detail and authentic portrayal of an autistic protagonist create a universal story of someone looking for belonging.