At the time Emma Starling was born, the midwife noted that she had a natural gift of healing. And while it wasn’t strong when she was a child, her family forbade her to use it until she was of age. Emma, bright, beautiful at the top of her high school class, determined to go to med school and was accepted, but never attended.

Instead she returned home, feeling foolish and also without her healing power.

She found her father Clive was in the throes of a brain ailment. He had been fired from his professorship after making a scene about invisible cats in his classroom. He’s slowly been ousted from the band he loves and common tasks are becoming problematic. He spends his days in the company of the ghost of local naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes. Baynes, during his lifetime established a huge local wildlife preserve, filled with all manners of exotic beasts and extant to this day,. Clive also spends his days papering and repapering the town with missing posters for Emma’s vanished high school best friend.

Emma’s brother had a high school sports injury and is now a recovering addict. Drugs are a major problem in the town. The police believe that Emma’s missing friend is one more victim of the epidemic.

Emma takes over the guardianship of her father, and also assumes a job as the semipermanent substitute teacher for a class of problematic kids whose former teacher is also mixed up with the town’s drug problem.

In the background there is a chorus of ghosts, sitting on their tombstones, much like the graveyard in Our Town and commenting on the happenings of the town.

There is a lot going on in this novel – family expectations, ghosts, ghost animals, miraculous healings (this thread just frittered out - why?), the drug epidemic, caring for loved ones with dementia and young women going missing. Perhaps there were too many elements for me as I just never quite became invested in the many threads of the story, although I did like the upbeat ending.

One sentence review: [Demon Copperhead] meets [[Our Town]] along with historical photographs of the real naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes.

This is a very quirky novel featuring a Greek chorus based in a small New Hampshire graveyard, in the manner of Our Town. Within the town boundaries of fictional Everton is a real wild game park patronized only by the wealthiest citizens and mostly ignored by the locals, who have no access but must be wary of the occasional wild boar invading their gardens. Home from a non-starter stint at medical school in California, morose Emma slinks home to find her father Clive in the throes of memory loss, her mother Ingrid moving out of their home to cohabitate with the local doctor, and her brother Auggie recovering from his heroin addiction. Emma's best friend Crystal has disappeared, and Clive is obsessed with finding her. Emma becomes a substitute teacher and is invigorated by her fifth grade students, who are still suffering from the jailing of their teacher for drug distribution. Those who are buried in the local cemetery observe and comment on the goings-on (but not those who had been cremated - their consciousness is too dispersed). The nature and necessity of best friendhood is a major theme, and there's much gentle humor here as well as some true facts. ( )

Oh man, I'm incredibly disappointed this didn't work for me. I've heard nothing but amazing things about it, and I dove in with very high hopes.

I'd anticipated "Unlikely Animals" would break me out of my current reading slump, but it wasn't meant to be. There was nothing wrong with the book, as such... it just didn't grip me. I read and read, and thought, "meh, I don't really care about any of it."

I was also confused several times and had to go back and re-read passages. Finally, I can't say I was terribly keen on the ghosts-as-narrators thing.

I won't be returning to this one. ( )

Happy Publication Day! April 12,2022

4.5⭐️ rounded up!

The ghosts of the Maple Street Cemetery in the fictional town of Everton, New Hampshire are governed by a strict set of rules and restrictions for its occupants and the most important ones are as follows:
Rule#1: No Meddling in the affairs of the living.
Rule#2: If you stop caring about the events of the living, you’re in direct violation of the rules of the cemetery, and your soul shrivels up before it disappears.
However, the rules do not prevent the ghosts from seeing everything that is going on in the lives of the residents of Everton. With wit, wisdom, humor and a healthy dose of sarcasm woven into their commentary, they proceed to narrate the story of the Starling family of Everton and their community.

We meet twenty–two–year–old Emma Starling, returning home from California, where she was attending college, on account of her father's illness. Unbeknownst to her family, she has dropped out of medical school and has been living in a vegan commune while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She was born with “charismata iamaton” – healing hands, a gift that her family thought would prove useful in the medical profession. However, her powers have dissipated to almost non-existent as she has grown older. Her father, Clive Starling, retired poetry professor, has been diagnosed with a terminal illness affecting his brain, causing cognitive and motor problems. Clive experiences hallucinations (mostly of cats, rabbits and other animals) which lead to some strange incidents in his classroom forcing him into retirement. He can also see and regularly interact with the ghost of long-dead official naturalist of Corbin Park, Ernest Harold Baynes, who lived with a number of wild animals in his home in the course of his lifetime. Clive's association with "Harold" lead to quite a few humorous incidents, much to the dismay of his family (like ordering a pet fox from Russia for an exorbitant sum of money, who Clive names Rasputin). Despite his illness, Clive refuses to stop actively searching for Emma’s high school friend Crystal Nash who has disappeared without a trace and was also an addict and involves Emma to assist in his efforts. Emma’s mother Ingrid, also employed at the college where Clive worked, is dealing with Clive’s illness and the cracks in her marriage while also taking care of Auggie, Emma’s younger brother and recovering addict. It is clear that this family needs time and effort to deal with so much going on and what follows is a series of events that test their endurance, loyalty and love for one another.

The novel focuses on family, community, marriage, relationships and infidelity while also addressing many serious issues such as age-related illness and the challenges of caregiving as well as substance abuse and opioid addiction and its effects on addicts and their loved ones. Emma’s efforts to bond with her fifth-grade class, at the elementary school where she takes a substitute teaching position, lead to some heartwarming moments and emphasizes the importance of teachers and schools in the community. Love for animals and the difference our animal friends can make in our lives is a running theme in this novel. (“That’s why we like living with animals so much; they exhibit their joy so outwardly, remind us how to be better alive.”) A lot is going on in this story, but the author keeps the tone engaging and unambiguous and never lets it become too heavy or overwhelming for the reader. I loved the selected excerpts and photographs of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes (b. 1868–d. 1925) "the real-life Doctor Doolittle of New Hampshire”, his wife Louise and his animal friends shared as part of the narrative. I particularly enjoyed the stories featuring Jimmie the bear. This novel is enchanting, dream-like and full of heart and humor even in its saddest moments.

With an engaging narrative and a bit of mystery thrown into the mix, elements of magical realism and a lively cast of characters- animal (I adored both Moses, the dog and Rasputin, the fox) and human, living and deceased (yes! even ghosts can be lively!), Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett is a joy to read. Suspend disbelief and this is probably one of the most charming stories you can add to your to-read list.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for granting my request for a digital review copy of this fascinating novel in exchange for my honest review. ( )

I knew nothing about this book when I began reading it. I think it was noted as being a funny book, and that was why I chose it. I guess there are funny parts to it, but I don't think that is the way I would describe it.

There is a sort of epilogue at the end of the book which describes how the book came into being. Reading that answered some big questions I had, such as why there were ghosts in the story. The author created boundaries and traits for the ghosts that seemed rather arbitrary and confusing to me. With a bit more work, I think the book would have flowed better and made a whole lot more sense. After reading the epilogue, I liked the idea of the book much more, and I have therefore given it a higher rating than I would have otherwise. I wonder if I would have appreciated the book more if I had read the epilogue first...

There was another really annoying aspect to this book. I only recall the use of one semicolon throughout the book. Why did I begin looking for semicolons as I read? I was looking for semicolons because the author used a comma in every situation but one that called for a semicolon, I think. I found it really discombobulating to read it without the proper punctuation. ( )