Thursday, January 11, 2024

2024 book 5

 Aimee Pokwatka's The Parliament

Pokwatka's second novel (after Self-Portrait With Nothing) is another kind of weird and cool concept, but I liked it SO MUCH. The protagonist is a woman who, as a favor to an old friend, has come to her hometown library to teach a group of middle-schoolers a class on chemistry in beauty products. Except then the library is surrounded by hundreds of murderous owls, and no one can get in or out, and the kids and the other library denizens (including the man the protagonist secretly loves, who she shares a tragic past with) have to survive. (Of all the places to be trapped by deadly birds, I think a library is a top notch setting.) This is all interspersed with chapters from the protagonist's favorite obscure fantasy novel, which she's reading out loud to the kids. This was just a beautiful book, it made me cry and it made me smile, just really so good. A.


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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

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