I did not expect to write this review. Not in this way. Not with the feeling that something unremarkable on the surface—like the flap of a parrot’s wings—could reshape the air I breathe. But here we are.
This isn’t a book about a talking bird.
It’s about the space between words. It’s about what happens when no one listens. And what blooms when someone finally does.
Let me explain.
You may pick up Holy Parrot and expect a punchy mystery. A thriller. A satire. It’s not any of those, not really. It doesn’t tap the table to get your attention. It doesn’t give you neat answers. It sits quietly, like a girl in a dusty dress, waiting for you to come closer. It trusts you’ll lean in. If you do, it offers you a story that doesn’t rush, doesn’t perform. It confides.
I read most of it in the early morning, when the light was low and the world wasn’t asking anything of me yet. The pacing was gentle. I kept wondering if anything “big” would happen, and then realized something more subtle was unfolding. The novel was teaching me how to listen—not just to characters, but to my own inner voice, the one I often mute in the name of productivity or logic or convenience.
Leonard, the narrator, is a science student. And that matters. Not because he’s brilliant or bold, but because he’s trained to measure things—to isolate variables, calculate significance. And then he meets Maria, a teenager who speaks in riddles, in fragments, in dreams. She says she’s pregnant. She says a parrot told her so. She says the child is the new Christ.
And you wait for Leonard to correct her. Or rescue her. Or dismiss her. But what he does instead is rarer: he stays.
That’s what made the difference for me. This book is not about whether Maria’s story is “true.” It’s about whether we care enough to hold space for someone else’s truth—especially when it doesn’t resemble our own.
And the parrot? Gabriel? The Holy Parrot? He’s there, yes. Majestic. Mysterious. Utterly unforgettable. But he’s also a symbol. Of repetition. Of belief. Of how we absorb the words we hear, and echo them until they shape the lives we live.
I found myself thinking about the places where language fails. About all the times I, too, have misunderstood or been misunderstood. About the ache of not being believed. About how sometimes, the thing that saves us is not certainty, but presence. A body sitting beside yours. A sentence said twice. A bird that repeats your hope back to you until it sounds like prophecy.
This novel doesn’t end with revelation. It ends with resonance. You carry its hum with you. A quiet affirmation that stories—even strange, implausible, parrot-blessed stories—can make us more tender, more awake.
Is it a perfect book? No. But it’s the right kind of imperfect. Like real life. Like real people. It matters because it dares to ask us not to solve the mystery, but to sit with it.
Would I recommend Holy Parrot? Only if you’re willing to put down your certainties and pick up something softer. Not to find out what’s right. But to feel what’s real.
It’s not loud. It’s not fast.
But it knows something you’ve forgotten.
And it’s willing to remind you—if you’ll let it.
Open Your Heart
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A Difference Maker
This book is a winner of the Difference Maker award.
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