Welcome to Litsy!

I labored under the delusion that I‘d finish one more book by the time the witching hour struck…but I‘ve come to grips with reality now. While I‘ve got some lingering spooky season reads that I‘ll carry with me into the next month, 12 books is a quite a harvest for me!

And honestly, November is a pretty scary month, too - especially if you‘re a cold, cold baby living in New England. 🥶❄️👶🏼 It‘s not *inappropriate* to be reading chilling tales!

I knew this was a horror novel. I was roped in by the utter strangeness of the description (woman gives birth to an owl-baby), the combination of mythology and natural science, and its categorization as magical realism. What I didn‘t realize was how much abject pain the book would be infused with.

At its heart, this is a story about what it means to be a mother when you are ill…👇🏻

This is a remarkable, sinister book. As always with fantasy/magical realism, I struggled a bit getting my head round what was going on ("so is she hallucinating and/or mentally ill, or has she actually given birth to an owl baby?"), but it's brilliantly written and really gripping. A dark, unsettling parable of the violence and brutality and motherhood and caregiving.

Spooky Halloween read

Without a doubt, the best book I have read in a very long time. Filled with breathlessly artful language and metaphor, I couldn't help but inhale every line. Definitely not for the faint of heart - dark, gruesome, feminist, queer - and a delight for all non-conformists. Absolutely a book that I will read again.

Took me a minute to get my bearings, even though the blurbs about it were spot on. Lots of memorable quotes about the pain of motherhood and the real struggle of finding a way to support who your child is and also help them make it in the world. But like with owls. And music.

My #bookspin, #doublespin, and overly ambitious June print TBR shelf that doesn‘t include my June #botm picks, my #lmpbc, or anything I may purchase at Parnassus on Monday. 😏 I put my Elizabeth Warren bookend on that shelf, and hopefully she has a plan for how I‘m going to get through them all!

Thank you to @BkClubCare for sending Chouette! I started today and am really enjoying it!

Some late in the day bookmail! Thank you @BkClubCare for sending me Chouette, and I‘m happy to have my @AardvarkBookClub box, too!

Omfg. I absolutely adored this book, it‘s a disability allegory a queer allegory and a story of motherhood in a way that feels feral and intense.
A cellist becomes pregnant with an owl baby.

As a new mom I feel incredibly seen by this weird tale of giving birth to and taking care of an owl-baby. Both fabulism and magical realism at their best, Chouette is a fierce, dark, feminist story about motherhood and caring for a child that others want to 'fix.' It works as a fable about disability and/or queerness and as a literal story in its own right. I can't recommend this bizarre queer story enough! Amazing writing, spare but rich prose.

This book is truly incredible. Oshetsky's prose is spare but simultaneously so rich. As a new mom I feel incredibly seen by this weird tale of giving birth to an owl-baby.

Also isn't the cover amazing?

Book haul from politics and prose in DC. Great groupings on tables and staff recommendations.

“What if Chouette doesn‘t need a fix? What if she is meant to be exactly who she is?”
This is a bracing, surreal fable about motherhood and accepting diversity. It‘s written in second person: a mother addressing her daughter—who seems to be an owl. Bisexual side plot, too. Funny, horrifying and recommended… if this is the kind of weird that appeals to you. #LGBTQ

And in that moment you decide to open your eyes, and you see your mother for the first time—and 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.
(Internet photo)

Now and then the other wives try to engage me in conversation. But these other wives speak in concrete word-bricks, whereas I prefer to speak in metaphor: That way, no logic can trap me, and no rule can bind me, and no fact can limit me or decide for me what‘s possible.

“Your father‘s face, which only moments ago wore a pleasant, wistful, loving expression, now wears an expression of stiff-beaten egg whites, and he says to me coldly, “Look, honey, I can‘t take this any longer.”

Finishing up my April #DoubleSpin! What a wild ride this book is. 😳🦉👶

My #BookSpinBingo is Chouette! VERY EXCITED to finally get to this. It has possible #TOB23LongList opps (not sure how exactly but it has shown up on some recs).

You guys! Claire Oshetsky slipped into my DMs this morning! 😄

The prose is this book was beautiful- haunting - so much metaphor there was a part of me that wanted to know what she was talking about but it wouldn‘t have been as powerful

Brave, creative, unique.

I won't soon forget this story of a mother's fierce love for her special needs child.

Lots of layers and many things that I still feel like I don't understand, but dark and lovely and worth the read.

The main theme of this story is motherhood and consequences that happens when the child is not born as we expected. Distancing/response of society, disintegration of interpersonal relationship, personal sacrifices, unsuccessful treatments, therapies, and when to end with them … heavy topics treated in a very original manner.
Strongly allegorical story, which you can read as metaphorical story or, to a certain extent, even as magical realism.

Interesting look on childhood through voice and colour … My current #WeekendReading

Very intriguing beginning 🤔
#FirstLineFridays

My #weekendreading and #weeklyforecast for the week
Continuing buddy read and a chapter each day of sense and sensibility, and a couple of library books. Tender I've started and I'm loving, intrigued by the blurb of the tagged book...
@Andrew65 @Cinfhen

I love a good allegory. This story deals with the demands and complexities of raising a child with extraordinary needs, where there is no clear right or wrong decisions. It left me with a lot on my mind. 🦉

My December #BookSpin #BookSpinBingo List

Sadly, November reading took an (expected) turn when the #TOB2022longlist was announced; have placed a few of the #NonficNov titles ongoing. I present a December list @TheAromaofBooks

This is a weird, often gruesome, little book, but it is also a refreshingly original portrait of motherhood. The struggle between the parents to do what is “best” for Chouette with ever advancing technology is striking, as is the loneliness and helplessness that Tiny (the mother) has to face.

This book is a giant lovely metaphor for what it's like to be a mother, specifically of a child with special needs. And how isolating it is. Not that I have any personal experience with the subject. But this book is beautiful.

#BookSpinBingo square 11
@TheAromaofBooks

Pub date is 11/16/2021
#ARC #Netgalley

This piece of literary fiction moves quickly- on the surface, it‘s the story of one mother, Tiny, and the owl-baby she gives birth to. But it is also a story of a marriage that doesn‘t work, of in-laws who treat her as a total outsider and what it‘s like to have a child who doesn‘t develop like all the rest. In some ways, this reminded me of NIGHTBITCH- and I think this is sure to spark plenty of conversations amongst its readers! Available 11/16!

Just arrived! Very excited.

“Arresting, darkly funny, and unsettling, Chouette is a brilliant exploration of ambition, sacrifice, perceptions of ability, and the ferocity of motherly love.” #TOB-adjacent #ARC #DogsofLitsy #EstherAssisting

Absolutely adored this book. Honestly, it hit me so specifically that to even review it seems like an overshare but I'll say this, it's an experience.

A novel where a woman gives birth to an owl?! This sounds AMAZING.