“Merethe Lindstrøm is a first-rate writer. You’ll hardly find a single sentence that hasn’t been finely crafted in her new novel … a rich novel completely without  dull points”
Aftenposten

“In The Anatomy of Birds, Merethe Lindstrøm is more seductive than ever … familiar in its insisting, methodical uncovering of our inner, frail landscapes … It’s about balancing on the edge of what is endurable, finding the light that makes it possible to survive … a moving novel about three women’s fates, wrapped in Merethe Lindstrøm’s sober, poetic language, at times with an imagery so surprising and precise that it punches the air out of the reader … Lindstrøm also engages with philosophers and other writers, such as Descartes and Roland Barthes. They contribute to the richness and complexity. They don’t take up a lot of space, but emphasize the gravity and the attempt of explaining and illuminating the almost inexplicable. Merethe Lindstrøm has given us another great read”
Dagsavisen

“The gravity hits us with full force after reading this new novel by one of Norwegian literature’s prose masters … Next to Jon Fosse and Dag Solstad, she is the Norwegian writer with the best odds as a candidate to the Nobel Prize of Literature. In 2012 she won the Nordic Council Literature Prize for Days in the History of Silence. Merethe Lindstrøm’s works looms large … All those who are involved in the events of The Anatomy of Birds restrain themselves. You can guess at what they want, but you can never be sure … The characters have a quiet inner power, and there is also a quiet inner power in Merethe Lindstrøm’s prose and imagery. Each sentence builds on the previous on, there is an inner logica and power in this novel that perhaps only hits you with full force after the last page is read”
5/6 stars, Adresseavisen

“An unusually rich novel … The most impressive thing is … perhaps how Lindstrøm  lets a few recurring, overarching metaphors  and often surprising juxtapositions tie together different phenomena, such as people, weather, landscapes, animals and things … every change of weather, every nail in the bird cage becomes loaded with meaning. In this way, we get the impression that Lindstrøm always writes about several things at the same time, something which makes the book significantly richer than its barely two hundred pages indicate”
5/6 stars, Bergens Tidende

“The punctuation gives this novel a unique plasticity, a flexibility in the prose that I seldom meet as a reader – like rope being twined … The punctuation – and range of the sentences – is exquisite … I will in no way disclose how it all ends, I’ll only state that Merethe Lindstrøm’s novel is rich in miniature descriptions of the ways in which a person can be transformed”
Klassekampen

“One of this year’s great reads … as the novel progresses, it’s as if the mistiness of the text evaporates, and as the image of the characters and the events takes shape, I get more and more captivated. The form is probably both intentional and necessary – you need time to make your way into what the author aims to write about … After having finished the book, I am left with one of this year’s greatest reads. The Anatomy of Birds is a novel that demands patience from the readers, but which also richly rewards those who are willing to give that patience”
Vårt Land

“Merethe Lindstrøm – one of our most elegant prose writers – flies high and lands steadily … It’s the stiffened people that Lindstrøm describes so beautifully, those who freeze up somewhere without being able to reach out for help or ask for closeness … It’s captivating, fragmentary and poetic in a way that ofte feels breezy and suggestive, but at the same time earthbound in the depiction of the green, moist landscape with fields, wellingtons, cats, dogs, rabbits – and birds. It’s dark, autumnal, wintery, but it all opens up into the light. The first-person narrator writes her pain away. Merethe Lindstrøm’s nuances, sophisticated prose has the same luminous effect.”
Dagbladet