Review: 'Man with a Seagull on His Head' by Harriet Paige

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

'Man with a Seagull on His Head' by Harriet Paige, 200 pages - Instagram @c_reads_books

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Man with a Seagull on His Head by Harriet Paige tells the story of Ray Eccles, an ordinary man, until on the morning on his fortieth birthday, he goes for a walk on the beach. As he sits looking at the beach, he turns to notice a woman sitting next to him, and then a seagull falls on him. After Ray regains consciousness, he feels an inexplicable urge to paint the woman he saw on the beach- everywhere and with any materials he can get his hands on. He soon becomes a famous painter, and the woman, Jennifer, eventually discovers that she is the one who inspired all of Ray’s obsessive painting.

I bought this book as I usually do, on compulsion. When picking out books, I have to say, I sometimes just look at the cover. Personally, I think it is much more fun to pick out books on impulse and randomly, because you never know what you are going to get. Although my method usually works, I am still somewhat undecided on whether my intuition worked for this book. I liked the concept of the book, as I am admirer of art (in any form), but I did not love the way the story unfolded. The two main characters, Ray and Jennifer, only interact once, when Ray first sees her, and the book carries out the two characters’ storylines separately, which I did not entirely love. I liked the ending and Jennifer’ feeling that Ray was the only person who really truly saw her, but I didn’t love some of the in between storyline of Jennifer and her life. I also thought the Zoobs, the art collectors who take Ray in, were just really bizarre as characters, and the dynamic between them and Ray was odd, with their whole storyline feeling unnecessary. Everything considered, this book was decent, with an interesting premise and ending, but a good portion of the middle of the story was aimless, at least in my opinion.