Review: Unlikely Animals (by Annie Hartnett)

My Rating:  4.5 stars



Annie Hartnett's Unlikely Animals is a quirky, unique, interesting story – the likes of which I can honestly say that I've never read before.  I'm actually not sure if I'll be able to describe the "uniqueness" of this story accurately – I will certainly try, but I recommend reading this one yourself to get the full experience of it.

 

On the surface, this sounds like a perfectly ordinary "small-town homecoming" story where the main protagonist Emma Starling decides to return home to her family in Everton, New Hampshire after having dropped out of med school in California.   Having lost her way, Emma was hoping to escape back to her hometown to "figure things out" and put her life back on track, which turns out to be easier said than done given what she has to face upon arrival:  her judgmental mother Ingrid who doesn't seem to approve of anything she does; her younger brother Auggie, whom Emma has always been at odds with growing up, with their relationship deteriorating even further after Auggie's recent stint in rehab; and her father Clive, who is dying from a degenerative brain disease that causes him to hallucinate not just small animals, but also the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes.  But that's not all….Emma is also shocked to find out that her best friend from high school, Crystal Nash, has been missing for months, but with the local police writing the case off due to Crystal's drug use prior to her disappearance, no one is making an effort to find her – that is, except for Emma's dad Clive, who remains steadfast in his belief that Crystal must still be alive and so spends most of his days putting up missing persons posters all around town.  What ensues is a series of events that come together and form a story that is both poignant and wistful, yet also funny and heartwarming, all at the same time. 

 

One of the things that made this story so unique was Harnett's ability to combine the realistic and the fanciful to such great effect.  On the one hand, there were characters who felt so real, with their universally relatable struggles, having to deal with real-life issues such as drug addiction, infidelity, terminal illness, parental expectations and judgment, strained friendships, sibling rivalry, the ups and downs of relationships in general, etc. – basically ordinary people dealing with familiar situations that so many of us could resonate with.  Yet on the other hand, there were also fantastical elements that were more than a little "magical" – such as a character hallucinating small animals and having conversations with a ghost, a cute pet fox that is friendly with humans and acts more like a dog than a fox, a giant white dog that thinks and acts more like a human than a dog, and most amusing of all, an entire story narrated by the spirits of a bunch of dead folks from their "forever resting place" at the Maple Street Cemetery (this was my absolute favorite element of the story).

Genre-wise, this felt like a mashup that didn't really fit neatly in any one category.  In addition to the fantasy / magical realism and contemporary fiction elements mentioned earlier, there were also elements of mystery / suspense (what happened to Crystal and the ongoing search for her), historical fiction (the story of nineteen-century robber-baron Austin Corbin, the real-life Ernest Harold Baynes, who was a naturalist once employed at the park bearing Corbin's name, and the real animals that Harold and his wife lived with during their lifetime), and some romance (a very minor element in the story).  In her Author's Note (which is a must-read) as well as in interviews, Hartnett talked about how some of the scenes in the book were based on "scraps" from her real life (such as the deer scene for example or her own experience as a sixth grade teacher when she was twenty two) — so there were some biographical elements mixed in as well!

This was a story with both humor and heart that I'm absolutely glad I got the chance to read (thank goodness for book club, as I probably wouldn't have picked this one up otherwise).  Having enjoyed this book as much as I did, I've also put Hartnett's debut novel, Rabbit Cake, on my TBR — definitely something to look forward to in the future. 

 

Review: Community Board (by Tara Conklin)

My Rating:  3.5 stars

I read Tara Conklin's previous novel The Last Romantics and absolutely loved it!  That book was so well-written, with characters that were memorable albeit not always likable, an emotional story arc, and a plot that unfolded slowly but still had a good balance of surprising moments that felt both poignant and genuine.  Given the above, it should come as no surprise that, as soon as I found out Conklin would have a new book out this month, I jumped at the chance to read it.  While there were aspects of her new novel, Community Board that appreciated and even enjoyed, I didn't really take to the book overall as much as I did her previous one.  Perhaps my expectations were too high going into this one, which I thought would be in the same vein as The Last Romantics, but of course, turned out to be entirely different.  

The story revolves around main protagonist Darcy Clipper, who, driven by the heartbreak of her husband leaving her for another woman, returns to the small town of Murbridge, Massachusetts where she grew up.  Expecting to be consoled by her parents, she is disappointed to find that they had left on a trip to Arizona without telling her.  Darcy then shuts herself inside her childhood home in a self-imposed period of isolation where she shuns all contact with the outside world and subsists primarily on a diet of Chef Boyardee and chickpeas.  During this solitary period, Darcy spends most of her time alternately feeling sorry for herself, blaming her friends and family for abandoning her, and reading decades-old issues of National Geographicmagazine cover-to-cover.  Her only contact with the outside world, for the most part, is through the community board where the residents of Murbridge post various updates and messages related to their little town.  After a few months, Darcy starts to run out of food and, not wanting to ask her parents for money (because she is still mad at them for not being there to take care of her), she has to find a way to make money, which finally forces her to venture out of the house.  She ends up working for a guy named Marcus Dash-Lagrand, who had just moved into Murbridge with his husband Dan and their 3 sons, and through increased interactions with the family (as well as a handful of others), she slowly emerges from her shell and, more importantly, learns that she can indeed survive on her own.

The format of the story consists of mostly a third-person narrative interspersed with Darcy's emails (ones that she drafts but never sends out and ones that she actually does send) and posts from the Murbridge community board.  I thought this format was interesting and effective — I especially enjoyed the community board posts, which I recognized as being similar to the quirky stuff I typically see on my local neighborhood's community board.  I also liked the humor that permeated much of the story line — sure, some of it was cynical and raunchy and borderline outlandish at times, but for some reason, it worked in this instance (which is saying something because I usually prefer more subtle humor — "slapstick"-type humor is generally a hit or miss for me).

With all that said, what didn't work for me was Darcy's self-imposed isolation and self-absorbed pity party taking up nearly half of the story.  I'm not opposed to characters having to work out their feelings after facing a difficult situation, but the setup here was a bit too excessive in my opinion.  Darcy essentially spends the first half of the story revisiting over and over again everything that is wrong with her life; alternating between blaming her husband (for having an affair), her friends (for abandoning her), and her parents (for coddling her and doing too much for her); and depriving herself of proper sleep, nutrition, and hygiene. At first, I did feel sorry for Darcy, but after having to spend page after page (after page after page) absorbed in her complaints, I started getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated.  Luckily, in the second half of the story, Darcy finally ventures out and allows herself to interact with people in the community, which is when things actually started to get interesting.

Overall, I would say that, while I don't regret reading this one, I wish I hadn't gone into it with such high expectations.  Definitely lesson learned!

Received ARC from Mariner Books via NetGalley.

Review: Hello Beautiful (by Ann Napolitano)

My Rating:  4 stars

Ann Napolitano's newest novel, Hello Beautiful, is an emotional family drama that's billed as an homage to Little Women (though it's not necessary to have read that classic in order to enjoy this one).   At the center of the story is William Waters, a quiet young man who grows up in a home where his parents can't stand the sight of him.  His life is shaped by this lack of love until he meets Julia Padavano, who is attracted to William's steadfastness and simplicity. William is lovingly accepted into the close-knit Padavano family — Julia's parents Charlie and Rose, her second sister Sylvia, twin sisters Cecilia and Emeline — and soon becomes an inextricable part of the fierce loyalty that bonds this family together.  But then things start to happen one after the other that slowly drive a rift into the family and threaten to destroy the long-held unity and loyalty between the 4 sisters.  

This was a slow-burn, character-driven story that really took its time to develop each of the characters in a way that made each one so real and true-to-life. I identified with Sylvie the most, though I couldn't help rooting for all the sisters at various points of the story. One of the unique things that Napolitano did in this story (which I don't often see in other stories) was to make all the male characters just as beloved as the female characters (pretty much the only "hated" characters in the story were William's parents). Charlie played an important role in the story, as did Kent as well as William's other basketball buddies.  I especially loved the friendship between William and Kent, which I found the most moving and heartfelt (so much so that several of their scenes together actually brought tears to my eyes).

I feel that this is one of those books you need to experience for yourself, as it's hard to do justice to the story and the characters in such a brief review. Granted, there were some heavy themes in this one and some parts weren't easy to get through, but ultimately, the story was both poignant and hopeful (though not really sure how I felt about the ending). Given how much I love character-driven stories, the well-drawn character portrayals alone made this one absolutely worth reading.

I've actually had Napolitano's previous novel Dear Edward on my shelf for a while, but have yet to get around to reading it.  Well, now with this exposure to Napolitano's work, I know I will need to make time to read that book as well as explore the rest of her backlist at some point.

Received ARC from Dial Press via NetGalley