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m_liz's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Pregnancy
virsamajor's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Grief and Terminal illness
Minor: Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
bridgetam's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Grief, Body horror, Blood, and Animal death
Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse
Minor: Abortion
cait's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Minor: Blood, Infidelity, Grief, Pregnancy, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, Self harm, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, and Terminal illness
snakem's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Minor: Body horror, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, and Suicide attempt
dixiecarroll's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Death of parent, Grief, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Animal death, Cannibalism, Blood, and Pregnancy
itsnicholaslashay's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Grief, Body horror, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
prestonpre's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Terminal illness, Grief, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Blood and Confinement
Minor: Body horror
morethanmylupus's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is the kind of book that you either love or find mind-numbingly weird. It's a quick, relatively easy read in the sense that the chapters are short and the prose isn't overblown. The themes, of course, are much deeper. When do you have to force yourself to let go of someone you love? How do you cope with a loved one becoming something that's not only completely unrecognizable but also potentially dangerous? How do you know when you've made the most you possibly can of an untenable situation? How do you grieve someone who isn't exactly gone but is no longer accessible?
Yes, the premise of there turning out to be genes that turn humans into various animals is far-fetched, but the animal transformations were only a scaffold on which to build a whole story around loving and loving enough to let go. In the midst of all this animal transformation, we get a lot of familiar themes around domestic violence, found family, and friendships long and fleeting.
A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
Graphic: Domestic abuse
okiecozyreader's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
“She missed the illusion of grass and sky kissing at the end of the world.
She missed standing amid a rustling chorus of wind-waving grasses, the four horsemen of the tallgrass prairie - little bluestem, big bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass. She missed May fields dotted with black-eyed Susans, Indian blanket, and coreopsis. She missed bursts of red clay topsoil along dirt roads. She missed the smell emanating from meat smokers, the way the grocery store was always empty on Sunday mornings, good thirty-dollar haircuts, and scissor-tailed flycatchers, suspended like supermen in hot, dry air. She missed the evenings most of all: the grapefruit sun hovering above the prairie, dismissing the day with unpredictable strokes of cantaloupe, fuchsia, and violet.” P35
Wren and Lewis celebrate their first year of marriage, and soon thereafter, he realizes something is wrong with his body, and finds out he is mutating into a great white shark. His loving wife Wren takes care of him as his body and mind transform, and he loses the ability to direct the school play, and acting is one of his great loves. But their love for each other is incredibly beautiful.
“When Lewis finally came to bed, he took sleeping Wren's hand in his and closed his eyes, seeing if he could sense her electrical field.
"What... What are you doing?" she asked groggily.
"Just seeing what it's like to love you when I can't see you." P70
In part 2, we go back to Wren’s childhood and learn about her mother Angela. It was a totally different story, but while reading the first part, I wondered about her mother, and appreciated the backstory, even though it was difficult in many ways.
In part 3 we go back to Lewis in current day and then to Wren. I loved the mother and daughter story and how the author writes in the Acknowledgments, “When I write of a mother's love, I write not from the experience of being one myself but from being a daughter who has been so, so lucky to be loved by parents like you.” Throughout the book, I felt that love.
“Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end.
Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.” P 397
“Angela had been grieving Marcos almost as long as she'd known him, and finally, like a rainbow against a bruise-hued cloud, she saw the real Marcos--not as an idea, dream, hope, or possibility - but as he really was,
Marcos drew an outline of a person who was generous, wise, and kind. and Angela's longing animated his image with life and color. This two-dimensional Marcos, the one she imagined, was never real.” P274
“And then Lewis caved, as usual, to the chatter of resistance, the recita-ton of his very important responsibilities, the weighty things that would require all his life force, attention, and creative energy, why he should not do the thing that was, deep down, most important to him.” P35
Moderate: Pregnancy, Abandonment, Drug use, Blood, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic and Abortion