Review: The Road to Tender Hearts (by Annie Hartnett)

My Rating: 4 stars

When I first picked up Annie Hartnett’s newest novel The Road to Tender Hearts and read the premise, it sounded a little silly to me and I wasn’t sure if I would like it.  But then I remembered that I had read Harnett’s previous novel Unlikely Animals and had really enjoyed that one, so I should probably give this one a go (plus, with the world we’re living in, maybe “silly” is what we need right now).  In any case, I’m glad I decided to go with this weird, quirky, humorous, heartwarming read, as it provided a nice departure from the mostly “heavy” stuff that I had been reading as of late.

On the surface, the premise sounds pretty simple:  sixty-three-year-old PJ Halliday reads in the paper that the husband of his high school crush Michelle Cobb has died, so he decides to embark on a cross-country road trip to the retirement community where she lives to try and win her back.  But where the complication kicks in is that, before PJ gets a chance to leave for his trip, he is unexpectedly entrusted with the care of two children whom he never knew existed:  the recently orphaned grandchildren of an estranged half-brother with whom he had lost touch years ago. PJ decides to take the children with him on the trip and also asks (more like begs) his 20-something daughter Sophie to go with him, which she agrees to do because, well, there needs to be an “adult” on this trip after all (this will make more sense if you’ve read the book). Oh and then there is Pancakes, an escaped but not-exactly-stray orange tabby cat with the “special power” to predict death – when the cat suddenly shows up outside of PJ’s home, he decides to take his new little friend on the trip as well.  So the road trip ends up consisting of an eccentric, recovering alcoholic with a fragile heart (he’s had 3 heart attacks already), a pair of ten-year-old recently orphaned siblings who are not actually twins, an adult daughter who has been adrift since the death of her sister, and a (talking?) cat that is a “harbinger of death”.  On such a “unique” road trip unlike any other, what could possibly go wrong?  Well, you will need to read the book to find out!

As I mentioned earlier, this was a weird and silly story, but it was also delightful and fun.  I personally really liked it, but looking at the reviews, the reaction to this one seems to be a mixed bag.  Admittedly, like many others, I did find this story grounded more in reality than Hartnett’s previous book (except for the “talking” cat of course) and if we look at the story from this perspective, there were quite a few things that probably shouldn’t have worked plot-wise – but in my opinion, that’s not actually the best way to read this story.  For me, this story wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously.  I mean, sure, there are some “hard” issues that are explored in the story, but these are dealt with in ways that don’t lean too much into the “seriousness” of the issues but also don’t make light of them either.  I feel that Hartnett did a great job injecting just the right amount of humor into the story so that in the end, it was a lighthearted enough read, but also emotionally nuanced and moving.  Hartnett sums up the tone of the book perfectly when she writes in her Author’s Note (Acknowledgments): “This was my challenge to myself: to put everything bad I could think of in there and make it my funniest book yet.  Humor is how I have always coped with anxiety and fear and terror and discomfort, so I wanted to make it all terrible but also very funny.  Things are so horrendously bad, let’s laugh about it!”

Indeed, this is a book with lots of humor but also lots of heart.  Highly recommended!

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.