Mad is stuck in the library with her lifelong crush, several teens who showed up for her bath bomb program, and a relatably miscellaneous group of library staff and patrons. Outside the library is a swarm, or parliament, of murder owls, and several local emergency personnel who are too afraid and incompetent to offer much help. Inside, they're running out of food and other resources. It becomes increasingly obvious that they are going to have to save themselves before the town authorities decide to start burning down libraries to stop the owls.
I loved this Adult Hot Read. Mad's internal monologue, informed by anxiety, past trauma, and probable neurodiversity. The depiction of a library not as a sacred space but as a building full of resources and strangers with a shared goal. The interspersed chapters of a made-for-this-novel fairy tale, which Mad reads to keep the children distracted but which ends up mobilizing them in a crazy scheme to escape. From now on, this is the only book set in a library that I'll recommend.
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