A review by sk13912
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky

2.0

I love a weird book but this was just disheartening and frustrating. I appreciate the intention and the creativity with which it was done, but it was just an unsatisfying story devoid of emotion. I can’t sympathize with the mother or the baby or the father or anyone else. The mother was infuriating and hypocritical, obSESSED with her baby being different and rejected by polite society before the baby is even born.  She wants her baby to be her “true self” but only if that true self matched the mother’s perception of her child.  The father is short-sighted, kind of a jerk, and quite dumb for not recognizing his wife was deeply disturbed and delusional from the beginning. Also the metaphor of disability gets really lost in the literalism of the language and the story. Like what’s meant to be signified by feeding live animals to an infant?