This slim little book was a gem. It’s one of those novels that pays close attention to literary word choice (my favorite):

… a chaotic flock of flapping birds…

…her mother sprinkled talcum powder on the girl’s body with such rich abundance that she felt like a special dessert…

Sometimes [guilt] looks like a big, long tongue. Sometimes it looks like a bony finger, reaching out...

The author also makes a series of interesting structural choices – the deliberate (I believe) repetition of words that end one sentence, then show up in the next. It all leads to a wonderful cadence throughout the novel. For example:

Neither had Poor Deer been in charge of this story, that old fraud. I wondered where that old fraud was hiding herself.

Then there is the novel’s larger architecture: the main character caught up as an unreliable narrator, who attempts to tell the story of her life, only to be corrected by Poor Deer. It was such an ingenious and effective literary technique, leaving the reader wondering: which story is the truth? (view spoiler).

But bedsides all the literary goodness of this novel, which is so very praiseworthy, this author’s absolute mastery of human emotion is heartrending. Especially her continual deep-dives inside the psyche of the child character, Margaret. It’s masterful. This story about the aftermath of human choices – or mistakes – ones that leave lasting and devastating impacts on families, strikes the reader right in the heart.

Oshetsky doesn’t tell you how her characters feel: you see it, breathe it, live it as you shudder in the characters’ pain and misunderstandings. What makes it all the more magical is how the author accomplishes this emotional depth in only 240 pages. Highly recommended.

My thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the e-galley in exchange for reviewing this powerful novel.

Margaret is only 4 when a childhood accident results in the loss of a friend. Margaret’s guilt surrounding her involvement consumes her, and her terrible mother isn’t much help.

I had high hopes for Poor Deer after hearing so many great things and I did appreciate the originality of the story though I struggled at times to determine what was actually happening vs. Margaret’s imagination. Poor Deer tackles grief, guilt, and the impact of childhood trauma in a unique way.

I loved this book. Protagonist Margaret is writing a confessional about a tragic event that happened years earlier, when she was four, to her and her neighbor friend. I love Oshetsky’s writing; I love how they explore deeply relatable themes, like how grief is ever-present and how guilt will slowly strangle us, through unexpected means. I love the way they so perfectly capture here how, as a child, you confuse and take literally things adults tell you, especially when it comes to processing death and misunderstanding religious platitudes. I just adored this book, it really spoke to me personally and will definitely stick with me.

I have struggled writing a review for this book because I found it to be quite confusing for far too long. Still, the atmosphere was really powerful & I had a very unique reading experience!

This is a well written book, but I found the story rather confusing. I've read from this author before she has a very vivid imagination. Her writing is very quirky and offbeat. Beautiful story but not as memorable as her debut novel.

I really loved Poor Deer. I loved Chouette, and Claire Oshetsky did not disappoint. I appreciated the view point of the young girl and how one thing going wrong can affect your whole life.

So unique and beautiful. Very moving, yet written like nothing else. I found the evocation of grief and guilt very well done.

Not sure why, but this book gave me some major Coraline vibes. It must’ve been the cover. I didn’t get to finish this book because it didn’t keep my interest until the end but from what I read it seems like it would be a good read. I will more than likely reread this in the future.

Poor Deer packs quite the emotional punch within its slim pages! It's a tender, moving, haunting novel about a young girl's life and how she comes to terms with the role she played in a devastating tragedy. Told in a sort of dual-timeline fashion, the spareness of the writing and the powerful imagery knock you down with their devastating and savage beauty. Oshetsky tackles grief in such a fresh and kind of odd way that I couldn't help but be compelled to finish this story in one sitting. I can honestly say its unlike anything I've read in a long, long time, but I think that is this book's superpower. Here I am a week later, and I'm still thinking about it.

Poor deer tells the story of Margaret as she grows into a young woman; her first memory is her most formative and is of the day her best friend Agnes died when she was four years old.
This book was so poignant and honestly hard to read at times. The book examines the way children perceive the world and how things adults say to them can so easily be misconstrued. Weaving childhood perceptions with fairy tales and religion, Poor Deer is a story that I will think about for a long time.
Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC!

Pro:
* Captivating beginning
* Surrealism is very well done.
* Tense, singular narrative
Con:
* Moves almost too quickly
* The last part loses some of the intensity and cohesion of the rest.

Thank you to Claire Oshetsky, Ecco, and NetGalley for an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled to find any attachment to the characters. The story was hard for me to follow and it just didn’t set well with me. I didn’t absolutely dislike it but it just wasn’t for me.

Haunting in every sense of the word, Poor Deer is a quiet, mesmerizing look at the way grief shapes memories. Oshetsky’s writing is arresting and utterly devastating. A truly unforgettable read.

4.5⭐️

🦌Has anyone ever described guilt, the kind that chases and possesses you like Claire Oshetsky has done in Poor Deer? I have never read words that made me feel the emotion like Poor Deer.

🦌Poor Deer is about Margaret Murphy, a 4-year-old girl, who is involved in a traumatic situation. That trauma is thrust away and never dealt with by the adults in her life who want to ignore it. It is an exploration of what happens when trauma festers and is unexplored and how that can break a person. Poor Deer is a creature (of Margaret’s imagination?) who will not rest until Margaret faces what happened head on and deals with it. There are fantastically elements here, but they work.

🦌I am a huge Claire Oshetsky fan. As a mother of an autistic son, I loved and appreciated her debut, Chouette, so much. Poor Deer is of the same vein. I’m adding a new author to my auto-buy list.

4.5⭐

Sixteen-year-old Margaret Murphy has spent most of her young life haunted by the memories of a tragic episode from her childhood – an event that resulted in the death of her friend Agnes when they were both only four years old. The whispers, the rumors and her mother’s silent judgment would have made Margaret’s reality even more difficult to bear, but Margaret is an imaginative child with a love for fairy tales. The stories she weaves – the alternate realities in which she chooses to live in her own mind, stories with happy endings, help her cope with her trauma. But her respite, of sorts, is short-lived because an unwelcome character “Poor Deer” has found its way into her life and her story, reminding her of all she wants to forget.

Margaret is pushed by Poor Deer, a magical manifestation of her conscience, to confront her past and come to terms with the tragedy that has shaped her life. As Margaret struggles to separate truth from fiction we follow Margaret through the years, the people, places, and events that have led her to the present day – in a hotel room near Niagara Falls, sharing a room with the ever-present Poor Deer and two strangers who just might become a part of her story.

Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky is a compelling work of fiction. The author deftly weaves past and present timelines into a fluid narrative that tells a tale of grief, trauma, guilt and hope that is both deeply emotional and profoundly thought-provoking. The author has done a brilliant job of penning Margaret’s thoughts and emotions as she evolves from a confused four-year-old child to the sixteen-year-old we meet at the beginning of the book from the perspective of present-day Margaret Well-thought-out characters, the fairy-tale/fable-like narrative (with dark overtones) that uses magical realism to depict very realistic and complex human emotions and the author’s sparse, yet evocative prose had me immersed in the story from the very first page.

Margaret is an endearing protagonist and her story is one that will stay with you.

Many thanks to Ecco for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

A short, powerful novel of grief with humanity bursting forth through the cracks. The magical way in which this novel infuses reality, invented truths, and rickety deer monsters and constantly jolts you between the three is a triumph of storytelling giving the novel a feeling all its own. The invented truths inserted into the story that Margaret is telling the world, and herself, give such a clear grasp of the interiority of this unfortunate child, and woefully, it is an interiority that those closest to her seem unable to possibly give credence to. As Margaret grows and continues to live her quiet life we are there as she feels the full-weight of her guilt, and as she makes weighty decision after weighty decision, in search of a version of herself where forgiveness is possible.

I appreciate the storytelling, and the beautiful writing in Poor Deer. The story itself was very difficult for me, and I found no redemption in it. I think Claire Oshetsky is an immense talent, and with a different subject and characters, I would love to read her again.

What an incredibly unique story! The way Margaret's story was told felt hauntingly real. I was left guessing throughout the book as to what was true and what was imagined until I gave in and let it all blend together. As a reader of this particular story, I learned to accept each piece of the narrative on its own terms and release the urge to distinguish fact from fiction. Poor Deer is a quiet yet powerful exploration of grief, guilt, and the stories we tell ourselves (for better or worse) to make sense of all the awful things in this world. But we can also learn to appreciate the shocking beauty we stumble upon, as Margaret does, and also find a path to forgiving ourselves.

This was a wonderfully eye-opening short novel from an extremely talented writer, the author of Chouette, one of my favorites from 2022. Oshetsky presents a story of a young childhood haunted with an oppressive form of guilt, and explores the possibilities for expiation. In a bleak Maine mill town in the mid-20th century, 4-year-old Margaret Murphy is responsible for the death of her playmate during a game of make-believe, and compensates by creating an imaginary friend (the titular Poor Deer) to externalize and personify her guilt.. To her great credit, Oshetsky presents the least sentimentalized view of a child character I've ever read, and the magic-realist elements are played straight. Highly recommended!

This is a strange little book about a girl who feels guilty about her friend's death when they are both young children. Recommended for people who like reading about grief, and especially for those who like weird books.