Birds of Paradise : a novel

 by Diana Abu-Jaber. Versatile Abu-Jaber follows her imaginative foray into crime fiction in Origin (2007) with an exploration into the effects a teen's desertion has on her Miami family. At 13, Avis and Brian Muir's daughter, Felice, inexplicably started running away from home. Finally forced to accept their daughter's refusal to return home, Avis, a pastry chef, anxiously awaits her daughter's infrequent calls while Brian, a real-estate attorney, refuses to have anything to do with Felice. The couple's older child, Stanley, shares his mother's passion for food, but his interests don't especially please either parent, and his teen years were largely overshadowed by his sister's rebellion. Abu-Jaber drops the reader in on the Muir family just as Felice is about to turn 18, gradually revealing why Felice felt compelled to run away and how the reverberations of her actions are still affecting the rest of her family. Felice's contemplation of her future coincides with a big announcement of Stanley's regarding his own, sending yet another ripple through the family. Abu-Jaber's new novel is nuanced and deftly drawn. --Booklist (Check Catalog)