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boyblue's review against another edition
5.0
This is an excellent collection of short stories which reveal more about the human condition through animals than most literature can achieve with thousands of words about human characters. It's also hilarious, and has a good book's rare ability to make you laugh out loud. From the drug dog addicted to the drugs he's trained to find, to the lion in love with the antelope he should eat, and a sponge that ends up mating with itself and every family member it has in an incestuous flurry, this book has it all.
kevincatapusan's review
3.0
A collection of short fables, the book reveals a character that seems to be in the process of knowing himself. Since the author is a biologist, technical terms were used all throughout. It is a fun read. However, I am not a fan of reading shorts. I have not enjoyed it as much as reading other genres.
laviniag's review against another edition
4.0
A funny mix of fables, irony, satire, human typology and delicious language. I loled a lot, which is, I think, the ultimate aim of it.
blkmymorris's review against another edition
4.0
Okay. It was a fun read. Basically, it takes Ovid's metamorphosis and follow a male named Viskovitz through his romantic pursuit of a mate named Ljuba in the bodies of many different species. It's weirdly a little sexist in the lion section, but it's pretty funny. The stories are pretty funny, and some are very short, so it makes for a quick read.
trin's review against another edition
4.0
This is a really funny clever book, written by a biologist, and what he does is use the mating habits of all these different species of animals to reflect on the ridiculousness, the tragedy, the beauty, and the futility of the human animal's mating games. Viskovitz, in the various interconnected stories in this book, is at times a shark, a rat, a lion, a praying mantis, a pig, an ant, a bee...and his fumblings in all these forms to find love-and-sex, sex-and-love, are both hilarious and tragic. It's a really terrific, creative book, guaranteed to both delight and horrify. Watch out for self-impregnating, hermaphroditic snails!
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