Spoiler-Free Review

If you’re looking for a story that analyzes intergenerational trauma and the importance of sisterhood with just a bit of mystery binding it all together, you may like Call the Canaries Home.

What’s Call the Canaries Home about?

Three estranged sisters convene at their Meemaw’s house for a weekend, where they must confront their differences as they try to understand the decades-old disappearance of their fourth sister. We follow four POVs:

• Meemaw: the matriarch of the family. In her flashbacks, we understand the past and how the family became who they are today.
• Rayanne: the oldest sister who is married with kids.
• Sue Ellen: the middle sister who went to an Ivy League school and now lives in NYC.
• Savannah: the youngest sister with a deadbeat boyfriend and a service job who still lives close to home. It was her twin sister that went missing when they were four.

I expected more from the mystery, but it’s really the family dynamics that take center stage.

I think this could have absolutely been a four star read if I’d had the right expectations going in. When I started reading, I sped through the first half – I liked the writing, the distinct southern lens, and found the mystery aspect intriguing. Each character brought something interesting to the story. Plus, Meemaw was a force to be reckoned with, she was the true heart of the story.

“You’re misremembering. Y’all were too young to understand all the things going on in the family. It wasn’t anything for you kids to be concerned about.”

I felt a slowdown happen in the second half when new developments on the missing sister stopped and the focus shifted almost entirely to the family dynamics. It was interesting in its own way, but I felt a little frustrated at the lack of progress on the mystery since that felt like such a key element to the story.

“Look back for too long and you’ll end up with a mess of broken dreams and a crick in your neck.”

When we finally did get a resolution to the mystery, it was at the very, very end, and I found it underwhelming. I didn’t feel a sense of payoff. There were no twists or surprises. But I did like the end for the sisters, who came away from the story with new perspectives and priorities.

“Sometimes it was worth risking everything to save the ones you love from heartache, from disappointment, sometimes from themselves.”

Should you read Call the Canaries Home?

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys literary fiction. If you go into it with less expectation on the mystery and more on the family, then you’ll probably enjoy it. I also recommend to anyone with siblings, or anyone interested in stories centered on rural Louisiana.