Discuss "When We Were Birds" by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Join us to discuss *When We Were Birds* by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo! As always, you are welcome to attend even if you haven't finished the book. In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will serve as a community for BIPOC and allies who love to read diversely, so please feel free to come chat and mingle! Book Synopsis: *A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.* In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St Bernard woman in every generation has the power to shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out. Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life his mother built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past, and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger. Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, an ancient and sprawling cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling, *When We Were Birds* is a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss, and love’s seismic power to heal. Genre: Fiction, Literary, Magical Realism, Romance Trigger warnings: * Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief * Moderate:…