So odd. I can't competently explain what the book is abour or what happens, but it was engaging and touched my heart throughout. ( )

Why can't I rate this novel? I don't want to try. It pulled me in and repelled me, not like, say, Kafka, but because it also irritated and angered me. A woman, a cellist and a good one, gets pregnant, doesn't want the baby, but then the baby makes a demand. She knows from the start it won't be a baby sort of baby but an owl-baby. And off it goes. On the one hand, it is Oshetsky's take on our culture's cruelty to anyone who doesn't fall within perceived normal parameters but on the other she isn't entirely wrong. As a person who doesn't quite fit, with a spouse and child who don't quite fit either, I have experienced a little of that -- we almost fit, so it's not that bad. But. What I object to is that the insistence on metaphor throughout means that the characters, all of them, are two-dimensional, they stand for things, they are not real people, not surprising since the entire book is written as one giant metaphor. So I see the point and care about the situation but I just can't care about any of the people. I won't give the book a rating because I feel the sincerity and effort that went into it, I respect that, but to average out my responses would make me rate it as, say, a three when it is really wildly all over the place. Might be very meaningful to the right reader.

"At first we recognize the existential threat that is growing inside us, but gradually evolutionary imperatives overcome the conscious mind's objection, and the will to reproduce overcome the needs of the host, until the only choice left for us women is to be willing, happy participants in our destruction." p. 29

Some women do feel that way, but not ok with me to make a blanket statement such as 'us women'.

This is a very unusual novel, and I felt, all along, that I really didn't get it - was it an odd novel or a satire? I enjoyed it, partly for its strangeness & partly because I liked the two main characters and the story. ( )

Chouette was recommended to me by a friend and fellow avid reader who knows that I occasionally enjoy stories that are "out there" in one way or another... And boy did this fit the bill.

Cellist Tiny becomes pregnant. Her husband is overjoyed. Not only is Tiny ( )

A woman named Tiny gives birth to an owl-baby, Chouette. Tiny tries to accept and love Chouette as she is, but Tiny’s husband seeks treatments to make their child more “normal.” I took this book to be a metaphor for families with disabled or unconforming children. It also highlights different parenting methods, and how they can lead to a breakdown in the family. It is not for the faint hearted (I am a lightweight when it comes to disturbing content), but I appreciate it for its message of acceptance. ( )