Planting Wolves, by Neda Disney, is a collection of linked short stories. "Planting wolves" refers to releasing small groups of wolves to help reignite the local wolf population or reintroduce wolves to a new area. This is directly discussed at one point, recounting how a few pairs of wolves were released in an environment with deer, in the hopes that they'd adapt and develop a new pack, but the wolves failed to thrive and even turned on each other. Did the wolves have trouble adjusting to strange surroundings? Were the deer too clever for prey? What unseen elements made it impossible to thrive? These themes of survival in harsh climates and of the conflict between wildness and civil society are constantly at play in these short stories.

In bookblogger and MFA circles, we often talk about whether characters need to be likeable for the book to readable. Here, the author introduces such a string of unpleasant people, sometimes completely lacking in insight or self-awareness. In one story, a sex addict blames his ex for leaving and taking all her things, after all, he did all the hard emotional work of telling her that he has a problem and he's been constantly cheating on her. In another, a rage-fueled wardrobe manager blames everyone she encounters for her unhappiness. And a husband is shocked to his core to discover his wife has an inner life and personal dreams. None of these characters were anyone I wanted to be friends with (a certain few would be absolute nightmare coworkers!), but I loved seeing inside their minds and lives.

Most of this is realistic fiction, but there are hints of magical realism. These are cleverly done, so that by the time a production assistant faces his stigmata, real life has already been shown to be completely bizarre and surreal anyway. ( )

Planting Wolves features short stories about eight people whose lives are merged together in some fashion before exiting off to continue their almost mind numbing loneliness. Will you connect with one of the eight in their lonely journey of life? In this book you'll follow the lives of a writer, housewife, movie production assistant, AA sponsor, sex addict, movie star, two-time liver transplant recipient and a TV costumer.

Planting Wolves is one of those books that you will either enjoy or one of those that doesn't make it past the first chapter. That first chapter - The Writer, was a struggle for me to get through even though some of his internal thoughts and struggles struck a few chords with me. This collection of short stories has some surprisingly on point descriptions of feelings and thoughts that I believe a lot of people could relate to. It was a little bit of a struggle for me to read - I just felt like i was slogging through it the entire time even though the content was good. The book doesn't have equal division of characters to chapters - the first four are 75% of the book while the others are woven in or feature in their own small chapters. The remaining characters don't feel as fleshed out like the first four and for me personally some of the characters that were just glossed over seemed more interesting than some of the four characters that had the most time spent on them. Some of the chapters definitely blurs the line between what the characters perceive as real versus imagined. It was interesting to see how each person appeared in the lives of the other characters.

There is definitely quite a few sensitive topics covered in these short stories. I would recommend this book to readers who like books that make you think, odd fiction novels and short story collections. A big thank you to Xpresso Book Tours and NetGalley for providing the opportunity to read this interestingly odd collection of short stories. ( )