The black bird sings at dusk ~ Linda Olsson ☆ Review

*read in french as “Au premier chant du Merle*

This book is nothing i’ve ever read so far.. but I loved it nonetheless ! It’s not a love story, rather a message of hope ..

This book is mostly Elizabeth’s story. A lady who decided to live in the darkness of her appartment. No one know who live there nor has seen her. She never leaves it, not even to go buy food, and haven’t decorated anything. All her belongings remains in boxes apart from a kitchen, a table, and a bed.

But one day, a young guy named Elias found some mail that belongs to her – they are appartment neighbors that have the same last name, so he can clearly see in how the postman would’ve made this mistake. Although nothing even prove someone is indeed in this appartment, something is telling him there’s someone on the other side of the door, listening. He then proceed to talk to this person and leave the mail there. Which proceed into obligating Elizabeth to give him a book in return, to not be “in dept” of that mysterious person who brought her her mail, which she’s irritated about because she didn’t asked anything ! That is the source of more exchange between the two of them, including Otto, an old retired librarian who lives on the next floor of thoses two, and who happens to be and old friend of Elias. A love story will also happen betweens the pages, in the second plan.

I felt alot of complicities between myself and Elizabeth … I feel like she might be mentally illed with depression as well as me, with how she barricaded herself in the dark appartment. She is broken, sad and scared, just like I am, but will slowly break herself out of that shell. She’ll start leaving her appartment more and more, with the help of the two boys, and eventually we get to know who she was and what she’ve been through.

There’s also quite some diversities.. Elias is a dyslexic, who find the purpose of his life through drawing. We learn that he have big difficulties in reading, which when he do, he’ll draw what he’s reading in order to understand. He’s also an author of graphic books, alongside with her good friend Maja, who write the story of his books after what he drew

And here comes Otto, who helps Elias in his reading difficulties. But not by reading the books to him, they much prefer the old man telling him the stories as one would tell their adventures; by memory. Something much more appreciated by the two mens, who reunite themself every tuesday for supper.

After that first encounter with Elizabeth, Elias proceed to wonder who she is, what that lady has passed through.. he then started to draw her as a bird. More specifically as a black bird, and a story had formed in his head …