Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Chouette

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Chouette by Claire Oshetsky

17 reviews

readingpicnic's review against another edition

5.0

I was hooked by the first page! Such weird and captivating writing that I finished it in one day. Such a heartbreaking story about the isolation of motherhood coupled with having a disabled child that her husband wants to “fix” (autism speaks vibes). I love how she never gave up on her owl daughter and that she understood that there was nothing to fix about her daughter; that the world needs to be fixed to be a more accessible and accepting place for Chouette. I loved the queerness of this book as well, in all its many layers. Overall, a stellar book. This is like The Fifth Child if the mom hadn’t been ableist also.

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vishnork's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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redrockhoney's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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savvylit's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Chouette is a beautiful and brutal depiction of motherhood, mental illness, toxic marriage, and loneliness. Despite her delusions, Tiny is a main character who is easy to root for. Though she battles with postpartum depression, her absolute love for Chouette is undeniable. In direct juxtaposition, Tiny's husband is a horrible man and a textbook example of toxic masculinity manifest. He belittles all of Tiny's concerns, he ignores all signs that Tiny needs literal help, he doesn't contribute to household chores, he's distant from Chouette, and he thinks he can "fix" his child with invasive procedures. Any time the (unnamed) husband appears in the story, he is infuriating.

Utilizing magical realism, Oshetsky leaves it up to the reader to decide whether or not baby Chouette is an actual owl. I personally am firmly in the camp of readers who believe that this whole tale is a metaphor for the challenges of raising a disabled child. The way that Tiny's in-laws call her "courageous" for raising Chouette, the way that her husband is obsessed with finding medical "fixes"... It's more than clear that Tiny's isolation throughout the novel is due to other people's heartlessness and lack of understanding. The people around Tiny refuse to acknowledge her mental illness before and after her pregnancy. And they refuse to engage with Chouette, choosing to be frightened by her differences.

All in all, Chouette is an emotionally devastating book written in an engaging, lyrical manner. I highly recommend reading this - as long as you are prepared to join Chouette & Tiny as they take on the world alone.

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seawarrior's review against another edition

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5.0

Chouette is a wild, lyrical novel I immediately recognized as a metaphor for raising a disabled child, specifically an autistic one. While Oshetsky relating her experience raising her autistic daughter to Tiny raising an owl-baby may seem questionable to some readers, I personally feel drawn to stories that depict trauma through allegorical and impossible means. And while Tiny suffers immensely in raising her daughter, it's Chouette who is in the most danger from a world so repulsed by her that it would dehumanize her in order to alter her natural state.

I gleefully suspended my disbelief while reading this story, relishing in Tiny's devotion to her daughter and Chouette's unembarrassed honesty and wanton destruction. Throughout the book, Chouette's father, who noticeably calls his daughter by the wrong name, refuses to interact with her unless he's found a new medical intervention. While some of these interventions are imagined, others that are briefly mentioned, such as forcing a child to ingest poisonous chemicals, are abuses that have been documented as supposed "cures" for autism: Parents are poisoning their children with bleach to 'cure' autism. These moms are trying to stop it (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/moms-go-undercover-fight-fake-autism-cures-private-facebook-groups-n1007871). Alternately, Tiny learns what Chouette needs and frenziedly provides it for her, while warring against her private doubts that Chouette's aggressively determined father may be right that she must be profoundly altered in order to exist peacefully in the world. I was moved by the meaning of this story, and exhilarated by its unconventional approach and rich descriptions of the natural world. While this novel may not be understood, much less loved by some readers, I treasured Chouette and its strangeness.

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hotdrinks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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conspystery's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up the audiobook of Chouette. All I knew going in was that it was a decently short literary fiction/magical realism read with some music references. I cannot even begin to describe how blown away I was upon finishing this book. Choutte is a fascinating, evocative, intensely resonant story about what it means to fit in, communicated with poignant, sharp authenticity and an undercurrent of dry, dark irony to emphasize its relevance.

I love how Choutte leans into the bizarre. This book approaches (and often reaches) disturbingness in its absurdity on every level, and not once does it shy away from that outlandishness. It commits to being figurative where it needs to be to evoke irony, and to being starkly realistic where it needs to be to emphasize the truth behind the indirect allegory. And it works exceptionally well.

My favorite example of this commitment is the narrator’s name: Tiny. She is dehumanized and dismissed as a little wife and a mere woman throughout the novel, and so her name reflects this-- as well as reflecting the internalization she has of that lack of agency. She feels small; she is minimized. Oshetsky hits the audience with this direct nominative statement of Tiny’s being right at the beginning of the novel, which I think is a massively impactful introduction to the themes the book covers. This detail, combined with the early introduction of the far less direct, difficult-to-interpret owl lover, establishes expectations for the book’s handling of the figurative and the metaphorical; there are some moments of straightforwardness and some moments of ambiguity in the allegory. The metaphor of Chouette where it exists is complex, and I love it for that.

Another thing I adore about Chouette is Tiny’s narrative voice. Oshetsky gives Tiny such a distinct way of thinking and phrasing, one that’s genuine and realistically emotional and interesting. I particularly love how Oshetsky introduces certain phrases into Tiny’s inner monologue that, to an uninitiated audience, may seem unnatural and misplaced at first, but by the end of the book they read as a totally natural, easily understandable part of Tiny’s vocabulary. The repetition of those phrases does a great job of communicating that this narrative is filtered through its narrator, defined by Tiny’s mindset. The way she continually falls back upon the same sentence structure when referring to her “owl baby” and “owl lover,” plus the addition of her own shorthand for times people speak without meaning in the words “yabber yabber,” does wonders for the audience’s ability to step into Tiny’s perception of the world. Oshetsky communicates that wonderfully.

Overall, I just love this book. I love its lapses into overt magical realism with the owl baby and owl lover and Tiny’s out-of-place, almost interdimensionally nostalgic childhood memories-- and I also love the brutality of its literal sections, however bizarre they may be. The surgical procedure Chouette is forced to undergo is especially haunting in that regard, evocative of all kinds of horrific real-world events. I love the ending and how it ties into those themes (and I agree with other reviewers that fans of Megan Hunter’s The Harpy would definitely enjoy this one too.) I love Tiny as a narrative voice and as a protagonist, and I love the way Oshetsky emphasizes the other characters’ dehumanization of her and the baby. The husband’s continual referral to Chouette as Charlotte is particularly striking.

Ultimately, though, I think my favorite thing about Chouette is the versatility of its resonance-- something that is achieved, I think, by Oshetsky’s authenticity in this story. No matter how you interpret Chouette, no matter what allegorical or literal meaning you find in it, it has something important and personal to say about the measures society uses to evaluate, predict, and judge individuality-- and how we can and should transcend those measures which emphasize perceived acceptance over authentic personhood, no matter what society has ingrained in us to do instead. I adore Chouette. I can’t wait to read it again.

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