Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > The Parliament

Magical realism takes fantastical events and portrays them in a realistic tone. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t agree with categorizing The Parliament as a fantasy novel like it’s being marketed. Because this isn’t a fantasy novel, dark or otherwise. This is a magical realism novel, first and foremost, with philosophically dark themes and horror tropes.

It was everything I hoped for from Aimee Potwatka’s second novel: The prose soared, I sobbed, I felt all the feelings, and I was completely swept away by this incredibly immersive story.

Calling this book “The Birds meets The Princess Bride” (as it states in the marketing material) is a gross oversimplification and absolutely does this book no justice. In mythology, owls symbolize everything from evil omens to talismans of wisdom. In fantasy, a parliament of owls has been used more than once as an unbiased council of judgment. In real life, they are beautiful and peaceful by day but chaotic and bloodthirsty by night.

“In the night, when the owl is less than exquisitely swift and perfect, the scream of the rabbit is terrible. But the scream of the owl, which is not of pain and hopelessness and the fear of being plucked out of the world, but of the sheer rollicking glory of the death-bringer, is more terrible still. When I hear it resounding through the woods, and then the five black pellets of its song dropping like stones into the air, I know I am standing at the edge of the mystery, in which terror is naturally and abundantly part of life, part of even the most becalmed, intelligent, sunny life—as, for example, my own. The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.” - Mary Oliver

I chose to view the titular parliament as a combination of that fantastical body of judgment and symbols of the underworld. It seems to best fit the themes of this book: grief, regret, anger, violence, abandonment, desolation, loneliness, helplessness, and trauma. Of losing your voice, not having a voice, fighting to have a voice, regaining your voice, and what comes after regaining your voice. Of flight, fight, and freeze. Of responsibility, fault, and blame. About sacrifice.

Aimee Potwatka delivers an amazingly complicated novel containing hugely emotional themes with a deft hand and sweeping prose that carries you away. You’ll feel drawn in and ensconced with these characters as they contemplate how to escape their judgment and survive the parliament of owls.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Body Horror/Disability Rep/Horror/Literary Fiction/Magical Realism