The book was parabolic and it hit on some heart strings were definitely pulled. I am not a mother so I struggled to finish the book. It will resonate with many though.

Beyond the dazzlement of this unreliable narrator, there is a solid story about mother love and unlove; about the surprise of becoming a mother. This tale is also about differences; and congenital defects (differences) and their effects on relationships. We assume a mother would love her child, but that relationship can develop differently from what we imagine. The owl baby and the crazy mother find love. In spite of or perhaps, because of the surreal dog people, this story carries its emotional story consistently. In the end, the owl child goes out into the world as all children do and the mother, Tiny, "resolves to be joyful, no matter what her future brings." A mythic telling or a parable? Thought-provoking and enjoyable.

Tiny is a professional cellist from California who is happily married to a steady patent lawyer. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she warns her husband that she is carrying an Owl-baby, and initially she is desperate to terminate it, but he is thrilled at the prospect of finally becoming a father, and she is convinced to continue. Then the baby is born and while everyone else sees a child with significant abnormalities, Tiny embraces her role as Chouette’s mother with horrifying glee, determined to allow her to be herself, red in tooth and claw Chouette is a highly original yet deeply disturbing debut novel which explores the wilder side of motherhood. My only challenge with the book is that it takes some rather bizarre and violent turns, which I found difficult to reconcile with the book’s otherwise nurturing themes. The theme's and dark look at motherhood as well as post birth issues with the baby and parents is a bit strange but some will relate/find it interesting.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and puiblisher.

A beautiful novel that is slim but packs the weight of a longer novel. I read in one sitting and have nothing negative to say about it. It's a book that you'll never say. "Oh I read something like that." Totally original in all aspects. It would be a great book club pick and don't want to give too much away of the story. I want you to discover it's originality without prejudice. Love this book.

Obsessed with this book. I had no idea where it was going to go or how it was going to get there. I'll read anything Claire Oshetsky writes next. This was actually the perfect book to read while pregnant because how many greater fears could you have, and yet the book centered love in every single moment.

Chouette is a unique read. I remember being taught that the word “unique” is a superlative so no reason to attach words like very or quite or extremely to it. It is a word meant to stand on its own, so this is where I will leave it.

Some readers will love this book for its idiosyncrasies and particular look at parenthood, especially its view as one where each parent sees their child differently and wants different futures for them. This makes the book seem quite the metaphor for many children who are seen as not within the “norm.”

Chouette is born to a human parent but is owl like. Her mother had premonitions about this and faced a difficult decision to make about whether to seek an abortion. This may resonate a great deal, especially in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Because of who she is, Couchette engages in some predatory behaviors. At the same time, she is broken winged and perhaps not able to survive on her own, just as human babies cannot.

What will happen to Chouette and her family? Will they find a way to live together or will they be split apart? Read this tricky novel to find out. I’d love to know what readers think.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for this title. All opinions are my own.

This was not a book for me. I’m sure it was trying to make valid points about the challenges of motherhood and society’s lack of support for women but it fell flat for me. It didn’t connect the points I think the author was trying to make. Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Tiny becomes pregnant with an owl baby despite the fact that she is human. Once Chouette is born, her father is dismayed and tries to fix her as Tiny attempts to deal with and accept the reality of her baby’s strange personality and unique needs. The novel follows Tiny as Chouette grows and becomes increasingly difficult to care for.

This story almost defies description. It’s a strange concoction of contemporary fiction and dark fairy tale with a bit of horror thrown in for good measure. The plot does revolve around motherhood in a metaphorical sense but not in a way I anticipated. There are themes of accepting your children for who they are and the trials of motherhood and parenting if you can get through the odd and disturbing ways that Tiny and her husband relate to their daughter and one another.

While the writing was good, this novel just didn’t sit right with me. It is described as darkly funny, but even as a parent I didn’t find the humor in it although I could relate to it on other levels. For me, this story was an unsettling and somewhat confusing read that left me a bit exhausted and scratching my head in the end.

A fantastical contemplation of tension between the demands of societal conformity and "normalcy"and the devotions of maternity, CHOUETTE offers an exotic look at common human experience, a reading opportunity providing perspective on humanity itself.

This book was not for me. I had a hard time getting into the story and was very distracted by the baby owl imagery. I may revisit some other time, but could not make it through the book.

Chouette is a contemporary fairytale that retains all of the elements of the tradition that I have come to know and love—it is at its heart visceral and about the struggle to overcome one's circumstances. But it explores the truly rending difficulties of child-rearing much more in depth than any fairytale I have ever read. This is suburban horror mixed with winnowing insights into the psychological and sociological; it is a trip into the dark, brave parts that lay within us all. I loved this book—its sentiment, conviction, and heart. One of my best of the year!

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This stunning cover is what initially caught my eye - I just love owls! And the description for this work of literary fiction only further intrigued me. On its surface, this is the story of Tiny, a musician and wife, who becomes mother to an owl-baby. Having a child so radically different impacts not only Tiny, but all of her relationships as well. Her marriage crumbles, her in-laws that already treated her like an outsider only further alienate her and the owl-baby, Chouette. The book really expresses, through this rather fanciful condition, what it can be like to have a child who is developmentally different. The love between this mother and child may not always be picturesque, but it is very primal and real here.

Having a brother with Fragile X Syndrome really added to my personal connection to this one. I am really curious to see how it is received by those without any type of experiences with a child who is developmentally different versus those that have. I think that this would be a really interesting book for a book club or other discussion group. I also think that fans of NIGHTBITCH, which I read earlier this year, will also appreciate this one. I found this one to be fast-paced, engrossing and think that it is such an original frame to share such deeply personal experiences. I hope that this finds a broad audience to appreciate this!

What a bizarre, enchanting story. The eloquent writing about motherhood while being such a dark, weird book was a strange combination. I couldn't put it down even though I didn't understand it! Even though I've moved on to other books, this has stayed with me.

"I dream I'm making tender love with an owl. The next morning I see talon marks across my chest that trace the path of my owl-lover's embrace. Two weeks later I learn that I'm pregnant.
You may wonder: How could such a thing come to pass between woman and owl?
I, too, am astounded, because my owl-lover was a woman."

In this first short paragraph, you have the open, guileless voice of protagonist and narrator, Tiny, who generously entrusts her story of owl-baby motherhood to the reader - every mundane, fantastical, strange, exhilarating, messy moment of it. Leave your literal mind behind and enjoy the trip.

Oshetsky does a fantastic job of showing us Chouette without ever drawing a static picture of her. I feel like I see her in a thousand mosaic details, some adorable, some....not. She also made me see my 'dog-person' self (and this doesn't mean someone who loves dogs) for the first time, showing me that I'm much more of a normalizer than I ever thought I was.

I loved this book on a sentence level too, especially Tiny's observations. Of her husband's masculine confidence:
"....he knows that nothing important ever happens unless he is there to witness it." And my favorite: “He looks at me reasonably. I never understand why he always gets to be the reasonable one in our arguments.”

Of a school administrator's frightening obtuseness: "We don’t want to frighten you, but we think you should be terrified.”

Tiny has some quietly piercing reflections on people that really hit home for me: “They are the tears of a kindly woman who has just run straight into the closed-door limit of her kindliness.”

And every now and then, a heart-stopper:
“....as I look back at you, my darling, so full of wild beauty in my arms, I feel my heart fly out of my breast, and I remember how precious life is, and how pointless.”

Early in Oshetsky’s debut, narrator Tiny intones, “I prefer to speak in metaphor: That way no logic can trap me”—a sentiment that seems to apply to the author herself. The story of a mother who gives birth to an owl-baby and proceeds to ferociously fight for her child’s individuality and happiness, this novel is rife with metaphorical suggestion but thankfully resists burying any kind of explicit thesis within its surreal narrative. Instead, Oshetsky lets the story take a freer, distinctly fabulist shape, using the language and imagery of a dark fairy tale but refusing easy analogy; think a minimalist riff on Helen Oyeyemi, married to the disquieting phantasmagoria of Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream. Yes, it’s a novel primarily about motherhood—the dizzying tedium, the terror and paranoia, the helplessness, the tension between retaining a tether to the wider world and committing oneself to another person—but Oshetsky is careful to take her story to surprising places, frequently brutal if strikingly beautiful. What really sings here, however, is Oshetsky’s spare but elegant language, a linguistic nocturne for readers that gracefully matches the classical music always humming in Tiny’s head, an articulation of ecstasy and pain, fear and hope.

This is perhaps my favorite kind of book: it's literary and non-conventional, but it's also a gripping page-turner that you can't quite get out of your mind or put down until you've finished.

The story of a woman who gives birth to an owl-baby, this book became so much more meaningful and nuanced once I realized, about a third of the way through, that the book was about parenting a baby who's different -- a kid with a disability or special need -- and all of the feelings and fears and hopes and conflicts that come with it (the author, who is autistic, wrote the book about raising her autistic daughter). I appreciated that the book taught me so much about what that experience must be like at the same time that I found myself identifying with what it feels like to raise a kid that different in any way.

The book is just beautifully written. And even though there are parts that become so strange that I can't quite understand, it never stops making you think and feel. It's one of my favorite reads of the year.

This is one of those books where if you let it take you on its ride and approach the feeling of the content along with its rational story then you will love it. Conversely, if you need to always know what is "real" and to analyze the story in a literal manner then you will be lost, frustrated, and very likely missing the point. There are a select few who I would recommend this to. People who liked Drew Magary's The Hike are high on that list.

The point is not whether anyone is mentally ill or disabled or any other label we want to apply. The issue is conformity, small worlds, self (and other) acceptance, and the complexity of human relationships amid all of that noise. It's beautiful and heart wrenching all at once. And a special extra gut punch for mothers (and possibly all parents) out there. I wont pretend to have insight to the male experience of parenting in general. The particular male in this story has his own issues that many parents fall victim to, including our narrator, in her own way.

If you can go on a well written, odd journey without getting lost in "WHAT IS GOING ON???" then pick up this book and you'll be rewarded. If not, then I dont recommend this particular book for you.

Thank you to Claire Ochetsky, Ecco, and NetGalley for an advance ecopy in exchange for an honest review. Sorry for the tardiness, but the end of semester rush won this round!

This book was really weird but in a really good way. I felt like I didn't know what was real and what wasn't and who to believe and I felt so deeply for all the characters. Really good writing. All being said I didn't necessarily enjoy the book though so that's why it's 4 stars for me.

This book is beautifully written and I have to admit it was the cover that attracted me to this book. At one point the protagonist said she does not understand her sisters-in-laws because they speak in simple, facts and she only speaks in metaphors. The story in this book can be read on many levels via a feminist lenses -- pregnancy and motherhood and instinctively knowing and doing what you think is right for your baby even if the rest of the world disagrees. This book also has layers of darkness and somber tones which I wondered signaled post-partum depression. There is also a powerful metaphor about "normal" vs. "different: and raising a child that is "outside the norm." At times I found this book so dark it was hard for me to continue but I am glad I did.

4 stars

I am grateful to Astra Publishing House for sending me an advanced copy of this book for review.

Well that was an experience... wow. From the first page to the end, this story never stopped being 100% weird. However, within all that weirdness was an interesting and tragic story of motherhood in the face of adversity. In this story that is told through a surreal lens, we follow a woman through pregnancy and into motherhood. From the beginning she is skeptical about being mother to an "owl baby" but as she accepts her role as a mother and comes to love her unique child, she is faced with judgement both at home from her husband and from society in general. She loves her child and accepts her completely, while the world is continuously saying that both mother and child are not good enough.

This story is a deep dive into a character, her evolving mindset, and her desperate efforts to be a mother in the face of opposition. The surreal take on this story makes it an intriguing and complicated read. At every moment I was trying to piece together what was really happening and what was simply her mind's coping mechanism. In the end I was never completely clear how this experienced looked from an outside perspective and I liked that.

This is not a story for everyone. I would recommend this for readers who enjoy literary fiction and surrealism.