I had heard this one was one of the worst pieces of xenofiction in the big pumpkin patch of xenofictions out there. Didn't quite believe that -how can you mess up writing birds?- turned out it was really bad and truly a fast slide down a rabbit hole of squick. I've read a lot of specist content, but we go beyond that. So--

Holy shitake mushrooms we have got to talk about how racist, sexist, classist, and awful this book is, and I'm not sure I can be the person to do that. Nazism and birds are not what I came into this book expecting, but it was what I got. Bird Hitler.

Step one to reading One for Sorrow: Take everything you know about birds, symbiotic relationships, and how birds coexist and throw it in the trash. Step two: Next take all those species tidbits and anything you've read, seen on Youtube, or grown up knowing, and throw it in the trash.
Seriously, out with all of that.

This is not a kid's book, but it is often in the kid's section, much like Warrior Cats(incest, pedophilia, gutting), and other adult books: Plague Dogs. We really need to talk about the amount of sex and sexual assault depicted in graphic detail within YA books. This just keeps happening. Also, there's all of the above plus a graphic, too-detailed rape scene in this "kids' book" so, uh. Someone please actually read the contents of these books before putting it out before children. Kids reading these and getting scarred is a regular staple and maybe that should be fixed.

Crows are exceptionally stupid, foolish birds. Yes, the one entire chunk of birds known to be capable of tool usage, learning exchange and bartering, and so on. In this book, they are stupid and unintelligent beings. They are low on the totem pole, treated awfully, and all in the family of corvid(save magpies) are basically hated and looked down upon. How???

Owls being wise is a small and poor hill to die on, they are exceptionally brilliant at what they do, but they are utterly stupid in anything they do not know. In One for Sorrow, they're extremely wise, blah de blah.

Robins are often a violent species of bird, with 10% of their deaths being by their own claws and territory fights going too far. But in One for Sorrow, robins are peaceful hippy-typed birds who want peace and never do violence, even if angered.

Eagles are elegant and majestic and barely useful. They're almost extinct and never ever poach or eat carrion. The book even makes a point to say they're too noble to eat robins, but they do! In real life, they love to grab songbirds and eat them. Songbirds are prey, all animals are prey to an eagle, even a deer! But one rabbit helps them so they vow to never eat rabbits again. This tied in with something else down below will elaborate on how stupid that decision is.

Seagulls are... pirate-themed and not featured? This is a terrible loss, I would have likely actually given this a real two stars if we had seagulls taking everyone hostage for their seeds and bugs and wielding some type of weapon. Or even using their beaks like swords! An utter waste!

Magpies are Nazis. Yes. Those Nazis. They are exceptionally cliche, unremarkable, and cartoonishly written but they are still Nazis. In fact our main character is detailed to have killed all his siblings hours after hatching, then being abandoned by his parents. So he fed off their dead bodies, and then grew into adulthood. Somehow, he knew who his parents were, and as adults, hunted them down. Then brutally torturing his parents in the darkest ways possible. Yes, our main villain Nazi was born evil. Shadow the Hedgehog at his worst written moments is not this level of edgy. Most of even the edgiest WC content is nothing, this magpie is beyond intense darkness and straight through to edgy.

And I have read some edgy content. Edgy isn't always bad. But here? It's literally "the suffering of others is fun!" It's absolutely bad.

As an outsider looking in, my reflex was to expect the large birds such as the owls and the eagles to kill the Nazi dictator magpie, but they cannot for some...some reason. Apparently even though magpies are eaten by both owls and eagles, there is no bird-on-bird violence done by anyone but the magpie species. Likewise, birds don't eat birds. Also, magpies now outnumber all other birds for some...some reason. I don't know. Plot contrivance? Because for some reason magpies needed to out populate all other birds, even crows.

Then they made a deal with insects to say they will never ever eat insects again if they contaminate carcasses. That's all of the insects made peace with via Tomar the owl. What are the birds eating now then? Why is this their doomsday solution?

The graphic rape scene early on is because our main villain basically tantrums and violates a fellow magpie for no reason. Poor Katja. She'll be back near the end. But this somehow gives him a conscious and he's in love with her when she returns, and ... what? She vows to kill him in revenge, and even though he has forgotten her, she raises her kid to kill him. Katja is killed before him, with him feeling "horror" for some reason. Her son seeks revenge. Both Katja and her son, Venga are then killed. Basically their whole revenge plan ends with them dead and nothing accomplished.
And then the main villain is shot in even more graphic detail than necessary. Because he's mistaken for his dead son who pecked a kid(extreme reaction to a bird, but okay).

Oh, I want to add the final nail in this book's coffin for me. It's a cherry-on-top type of thing:
The author wrote themselves into such a corner that they could only use an apocalypse as a possible ending for it. Yes, this book goes so inanely into the pits of hell that it requires an apocalypse as a possible solution. I saw a comment on Youtube that perfectly summarized how bad this went, "Because of a decision made in the last book, the world goes to shit and is running straight into the apocalypse, but then humans decide to nuke everything, but the rapture comes before that can happen".

1.5 stars, Woodall literally lost the plot. ( )

I listened to this one, very good narrator. A very good, but quite violent story. ( )

A fantastic book, one of my favourites. ( )

I thought this book was really bad. I rather liked the concept, which is why I bought it. Fantasy with birds as characters! Unfortunately the idea was totally bungled: the characters were totally flat and boring. The whole story seemed to be just a list of what the characters were going to do next, a bit like an essay by a 6-year-old. It was so bad I couldn't finish it and since I don't own the book anymore, I'm sure I threw it out at some point. In hindsight, I'm wondering if perhaps the book was meant for toddlers, but I'm pretty sure it was shelved in the fantasy section, for I wouldn't have looked at the children's books. ( )

Fans of animal literature aren't spoiled for choice and when a new angle appears in a novel it can generate quite a bit of hype. Clive Woodall's story of one Robin's fateful part in a war between magpies and the rest of the bird kingdom should make great reading. However, it doesn't. The story never really creates any depth in with it's characters, although the evil magpies get most of the exploration. It's adult at times, with some quite graphic and visceral scenes and it's the menace of the magpies which keep you interested. The hero's however are quite replaceable, which is a great shame. The most disappointing aspect is that the book is split in to two stories, with some overlap in terms of characters. I feel a more canny author would have have crafted this in to one story, which would have created a more epic novel. Overall, it's rather predictable, a tad shallow, but a pleasant enough book to wile away a few hours. ( )