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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use
#MMD Pick for March 2023
#StoryGraph: fiction contemporary literary magical realism emotional reflective medium-paced
368 pages • first pub 2022
Please note, I am a big fan of magical realism and dark humor. If you like that kind of book this one will please you.
Publisher’s blurb:
A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strangest of circumstances in this one-of-a-kind novel of life, death, and whatever comes after.
From the acclaimed author of Rabbit Cake.
It was a source of entertainment at Maple Street Cemetery. Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best.
Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A med school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire to care for her father, dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.
Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgement, and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab, but she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don’t spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma’s dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Someone should look for her, at least. Emma isn't really trying to be a hero—but somehow she and her father set in motion just the kind of miracle the town needs.
Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships, and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost.
#StoryGraph: fiction contemporary literary magical realism emotional reflective medium-paced
368 pages • first pub 2022
Please note, I am a big fan of magical realism and dark humor. If you like that kind of book this one will please you.
Publisher’s blurb:
A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strangest of circumstances in this one-of-a-kind novel of life, death, and whatever comes after.
From the acclaimed author of Rabbit Cake.
It was a source of entertainment at Maple Street Cemetery. Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best.
Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A med school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire to care for her father, dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.
Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgement, and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab, but she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don’t spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma’s dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Someone should look for her, at least. Emma isn't really trying to be a hero—but somehow she and her father set in motion just the kind of miracle the town needs.
Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships, and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost.
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Addiction, Medical content, Grief, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death, Sexual content
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
A well-rendered family and small-town story, with quirky characters who have more than a surface personality hook to interest me.
dark
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
At times charming, at times unbearably twee novel about a woman who comes back to her New Hampshire hometown to care for her dying father (and flee from a failed attempt at medical school). The book is narrated collectively by the town's ghosts, a device which itself stayed under my personal twee threshold; it's all the other implausible shenanigans (healing powers, unrealistic substitute teaching policies, drug trafficking, bear attacks, a kidnapping, a faked death, the inevitable Hometown Hottie) that combined to be just a bit too much. I didn't really believe in this place or these people.
Furthermore, there's so little sense of urgency or stakes to this book -- when I put it down, I felt no real compulsion to pick it up again, because until the very end, every chapter has almost the same weight and tone. Hartnett's voice is spritely and engaging, but ultimately, this novel felt like less than the sum of its many, many parts.
However, I did like the fox. You're always going to get me with a fox.
Furthermore, there's so little sense of urgency or stakes to this book -- when I put it down, I felt no real compulsion to pick it up again, because until the very end, every chapter has almost the same weight and tone. Hartnett's voice is spritely and engaging, but ultimately, this novel felt like less than the sum of its many, many parts.
However, I did like the fox. You're always going to get me with a fox.
emotional
funny
hopeful