Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela

 This was another of my "pick up an interesting-looking random book" at the library choices. And I liked the title and the description on the back. I don't know much about Muslim women, and so this looked intriguing.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the premise of three very different Muslim immigrant women taking a road trip together, a pilgrimage almost, in England. They were planning to visit the shrine of one of their heroines, and this trip was way out of their comfort zone.

The way the three friends interacted and revealed customs of their different Muslim cultures was interesting and enlightening to me. Their various relationships that they discussed with each other revealed their more traditional and "women suppressive" experiences and attitudes. It was fascinating reading about their different challenges. And then...the author took a turn into fantasy, where a Hoopoe bird began talking to one of them, and it told story after story.

I'm sure these were allegorical, but often they left me clueless. And for most of the middle of the book, it was hard to tell what was fantasy and what was real. Again, these messages and experiences for each of the women had a spiritual moral message, but they were a little obscure. By the end of the book, I was back on board and understood a little better the growth each woman exhibited. So it was a satisfying ending, but not particularly enjoyable along the way. Just a little too weird for my taste.