Book Review: Owl Sense by Miriam Darlington

 

Owl non-fiction time.

In this book, Darlington documents her journey to see all European species of owl in the wild. 

Overall I liked this book, however I do have a few complaints. However, first the good stuff: I like this book and the author's journey. She isn't an ornithologist, she's just super passionate about owls, and that definitely comes across in her writing. I liked her writing voice, it was very easy to read. I also liked how the chapters were dedicated to one owl species each. So we'd have chapters dedicated to snowy owls, barn owls, eagle owls, etc. 

However, where I do have a problem is that the author would sometimes go on random rather unrelated tangents within these chapters. There's multiple times where she starts to go on and on about her son's health (Non Epileptic Seizure Disorder and autism) and while that's all interesting, it's just not related to the book at all. The only thing the son has to do with the subject matter is that he also loves owls. I hope I don't sound like an asshole here, but when you're writing a book about owls, these tangents that have nothing to do with the book are rather distracting.

There's also another one where she described in detail the process of taxidermy, and while that one is at least semi-related (they're mounting an owl) it's still just not really related to the search for the owl species in question. I like taxidermy a lot, even doing it myself occasionally purely for hobby, but like with the son's health it just isn't relevant to the owls this book is supposed to be about. During the taxidermy section the author also keeps going on and on about our relationship with death and how taxidermy fits into that, and while that's interesting for me personally because I like taxidermy, it's just not what the reader is here for when picking up this book.

I liked all the information I got about owls. I liked the lengths the author was willing to go to just in order to see them in the wild. But these random tangents that were present just were rather distracting. If they hadn't been present, I'd easily give this book four stars, but with the random tangents that kept distracting me I just had trouble staying engaged sometimes.

Rating: 3.5/5