Book Review - Owl in Love

Hey kiddies, I picked this up at a used book store in Boulder for $.67. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being I'd never read this book, 10 being of course I would, this book was a -15. It was so far removed from what I normally engage with, but still, I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl

It's novella length, about 200 pages, and I must say, a very uncomfortable read at first.
Owl is a 14 year old shapeshifter (who turns into an owl, fancy that) in love with her 40 year old science teacher.
Fucking.
Gross.

But alas, I remember being 14 years old and having a crush on men who were in their 30's-40's and then there's always Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, and for some terribly odd reason, Kevin Spacey...

Back to the matter at hand. The story is well written, the prose very readable. Not only that, but Kindl somehow takes the very essence of birds and converts that to a human readable form. It was so unique and engaging to have this different perspective. I enjoyed that part enormously.

Throughout the book, we follow Owl in first person past tense, and there are excerpts from a foreign character in third person past whose name we don't learn for a long time.

We learn that Owl has no friends at school, and through desperation to get closer to her science teacher, befriends a loud-mouthed girl named Dawn. A mystery begins to unravel as reports of an escaped young man from a correctional facility begin to spread through Owl's small town. In owl from, she encounters a new resident who seems quite off, and things start getting more tense in all aspects of Owl's life.

I won't divulge much more than that because it's such a short read and I don't want to give everything away. In any case, it states it is a book for teens, but I was still able to enjoy it. Just fair warning that the first 40 pages feel a bit icky to an adult, though Owl does act very mature for her age.

4/5 overall, cute little weekend read.