Epeolatry Book Review: The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

 Greetings, Reader! Books written with other books inside them are rare. A book with a full book inside is rarer still and offers a greatly different perspective on the story surrounding it. If that and a horde of murder owls pushes you over the top, then let me introduce you to The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka.

Madigan, or Mad as she prefers to be called, is in a rut. To get her out and about, she’s pushed into teaching a class at the local library. She hosts a few children and shows them how to make bath bombs. Outside, a flock of owls begins to gather. It soon becomes clear that they aren’t just passing through. When the owls begin to attack the library and those on the street, the whole town goes on lock down.  

Trapped in the library, Mad must manage the children while dealing with the other occupants. She will run into Nash, a young man from her past that will lead to her dealing with emotions she has long suppressed. With the help of her favorite book, she’ll hope to keep the children distracted until help can arrive.

In rare occurrences, no one character stuck out as a driving force. Instead, this story is made possible by its large cast of characters. While Mad does go through a significant amount of character development, it’s her interactions with the library’s occupants that carry the story forward. Nash is hilarious. His groan-inducing jokes always appear at the right time to break up the scene’s awkwardness. The children, who go through their own amount of character growth, fall into the classic horror archetypes.

As a horror novel, The Parliament sets a grim tone right from the beginning and the owls make great villains. When one character tries to make a run for it, the scene that follows ramps up the expectations for the rest of the book. Bad decisions abound and no one is safe from the avian menace. That fact makes every character interaction more heartfelt knowing full well, you might not see them again.

The Silent Queen, the book within the book, is both the right length and too short. I wanted more. As a fan of fantasy, the world building for The Silent Queen is so well done that I would love a stand-alone piece written in just that world. The parallels drawn between what’s going on with the owls and what’s going on in the story are very well done. In the end, the reader gets two satisfying endings. 

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka is a grand example of a book within a book. The Silent Queen parallels the main story well as the characters coming together to survive the owl horde. The character interactions and relationships are what make this novel easy to read. If you are a fan of horror tropes like forced proximity and man versus nature or a fan of twisted fairy tales, this novel is for you. 

/5

Available from Amazon and Bookshop.