All the Little-Bird Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow is the latest in a few written by autistic women in the UK books I’ve noticed lately. I’m sure many books are written by autistic women every year but there has been a real uptick in using this information in interviews and publicity.

Like the author, the main character, Sunday Forrester, appears to be autistic but as the book takes place in the 1980s it seems like she was simply thought of as an eccentric and annoying child and then adult. She has a daughter, Dolly, who, while more social than her mother, also displayed a lot of autistic traits but ones that perhaps were more easily hid or socially acceptable like dressing younger than she was.

It is a tight domestic drama that involves a strange couple who have decamped in a neighbor’s house while her neighbors are away. The wife half of the couple was ingratiated her way into the main character’s family and soon they were all having weekly dinners together and seeing each other quite a bit.

I had a hard time guessing what would happen next, which is usual for me! I had initially thought the couple might have had an interest in the home Sunday Forrester and her daughter lived in. It was mentioned quite frequently to have be worth some money and in a desirable living and holiday community and only hers because she inherited it after her parents died. She is able to work a lower-paying job at a greenhouse because of this.

But that’s not how the book turned out at all. I almost wonder if that was going to be part of the story at some point and then it turned away more into this other couple worming their way in to Sunday’s daughter’s life. There was a lot about the house and it was a very well plotted, deliberate seeming novel and I’m not sure what other reason there would be for so much house talk.

I thought having it take place in the 1980s was perfect, it still felt contemporary but it was a time before there as much awareness of autism and what little there was centered around boys. It was fun to read a book about an autistic woman and girl who were artsy, bookish, and creative and not science and math-oriented like the male-dominated stereotype.

I really enjoyed the book as difficult as it is to describe, its almost a character study of two “couples” and the undercurrent of need that dominates one set.

I received the ARC and paperback (which matches my current knitting project– fittingly, a hot water bottle cover) from the publisher, Algonquin Books, as part of a book tour. I was so excited because it was a book I had heard about when it came out overseas and then was long-listed for the Booker Prize and I hoped it would come out here in the US.