In 1950s New York, Boy Novak flees her abusive father and settles in a small New England town, where she meets Arturo Whitman, a single father raising his daughter Snow after the death of his wife in childbirth. Troubled by a hallucinatory fear of her own reflection, Boy soon gives birth to a daughter of her own, Bird, whose appearance immediately destroys the secret carefully buried by Arturo’s family, and forces Boy to banish her stepdaughter. The twee names initially grate, but Oyeyemi’s retelling of Snow White is a controlled, if surprisingly muted, reflection on race and sexuality, and the dangers of wearing a mask so long it smothers the buried self beneath it. Losing focus in the second half after an unnecessary switch in perspective, the book still manages a shocking conclusion that promises redemption without sentimentality, and demonstrates a writer increasingly confident in what she can achieve.
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