This book got lost is my kindle library so I discovered it a little late, but I think the book was waiting for me when I knew I could make the most of it. A thrill to read.

Wildly cynical and pretentiously cyclical, but you know what: I liked it. I cannot deny it. I need to make this review longer for the character limit but what more is there to say?

This book was disappointing. I wanted to love it, but I really didn’t like it. The character I think of as the main character, Alex, the Congressman, is a horrible person all the way through. I can’t stand him. And the entire time he is in the book, his sections are written in second person, which did not work. The 1800s sections were a better story, minus the large sections of vivid descriptions and details that were entirely unnecessary. I ended up skimming through a lot of those sections, including the first few pages of the book! I don’t know if I was supposed to end up liking Alex after everything fell apart or not, but I didn’t. I couldn’t feel the least bit of sympathy for him either. I did feel bad for Greg. But not Alex. I could see where the story was going pretty early on, but I wanted to keep reading to confirm it, and I was hoping for a happier ending, for the sake of Greg and the two characters from the 1800s. She also just WAY overdid the “Enter the aardvark” thing, using that phrase or “enter…” over and over again. It was annoying. So were the endless descriptions of the aardvark. There was a lot that annoyed me, and I do not think that she accomplished what she set out to accomplish. I thought I would love it, and I tried to love it, but I couldn't. And I cannot recommend this book.

A fun romp. I personally am not a fan of the trope of the huge homophobe secretly being gay the whole time, so that portion of the premise never quite sat well with me. However, the aardvark was the real start and I enjoyed the quirky, satirical nature of the prose. Very readable and quick too! It was definitely unique and enjoyable, so I will give it that!

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

So,we take snarky aim at a closeted gay Congressman, cutthroat Washington politics, millennial acolytes of Ronald Reagan, and a variety of other apparently unworthy people from across the age, gender, and class spectrum. Some of it is witty and some is brutally funny. The plot is appropriately antic and the aardvark macguffin is inspired. It's breezy and gleeful and full of cheap shots and easy targets. I admired parts of this, but didn't especially enjoy it. There was nothing new here, but apparently everyone, from Congressmen to funeral home janitors, needs a good firm mocking right now.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Based on the synopsis I had high hope for this book. Unfortunately I was not able to get into the story. The pacing for me was too slow and that impacted my ability to enjoy this story.

I will not be sharing a detailed review on this title outside of NG.

How do you write fiction about politics when real life politics are so profoundly strange already? Jessica Anthony does that creatively in Enter the Aardvark. A strange ride, but an entertaining one.

I picked this up on a whim and really enjoyed it. Its a bizarre and more complicated story than I expected from the description. The second story - about the explorer, the taxidermist, and the Aardvark herself, give depth and perspective to the satirical antics of Rep. Wilson.

This seemed like a waste of a few hours. A simple story far over told. I really hate second person narrative. It seems like it never gets to the point. This was trying to being edgy and controversial, bu it just missed that note for me. More just a boring story about a horrible person.

This was an original story. Two different people in different centuries connected by a stuffed aardvark. A teaser for the book called it "weird" and that is no understatement, Weird but entertaining.

'Breathless' isn't a term I'd usually use to apply to a book, maybe 'edge of your seat,' 'gripping,' 'suspenseful.' But for me, this book was breathless. I'm not sure if it was the 2nd person POV or the amount of threat that pervades the lives of these men. Maybe it was the lengthy anatomical terminology. Anyway.

And weird. And wonderful. When 'you' 'meet' definitely Not-Gay Congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R) it is pretty much instantaneous loathing (intentionally). [sidebar: Is he everything that is wrong with America? No. But he is a lot of them.] His modern day story is entwined with that of naturalist Richard and taxidermist Titus in 1870s England, and - for just a few moments here and there - a mature African Aardvark, who dies... and only then sets a stunning array of circumstances into action.

This is a story about hypocrisy. And love. And regret. And while there are some parts that escape me (what's with the muffin?) and some parts that I just don't think I needed (the conspiracy reveal)... I really enjoyed this tightly wound little book.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the arc to review.

In Enter the Aardvark, a young, closeted Republican congressman, who's running for re-election, receives a mysterious package on his doorstep. Inside the package is a taxidermy aardvark. While he launches into a panic trying to discover what it means, we're also introduced to the naturalist who hunted the aardvark in Africa and the taxidermist who stuffed her in Victorian England. The thrilling, political, and scathingly funny story that ensues will reveal the connection between these three characters.

If you are looking for something completely original, look no further. Enter the Aardvark had me entranced from page 1 and didn't let go until the very end. It's a short book, too, easy to speed through. While I wouldn't label this a suspense novel, we are often left with a cliffhanger each time the plot shifts timelines, which gives the story a propulsive feel. The narrator's voice is strong and biting. I liked the more omniscient third person view in the Victorian England timeline, giving it a Dickensian feel. The level of detail about the anatomy of an aardvark and the art of taxidermy were fascinating, never becoming long-winded or boring, thanks to the commanding voice and focus. Interestingly, the present-day timeline is told in a sarcastic and mocking second person, a fitting way to relish in the plight of the wholly unlikable main character.

I thought the ending wrapped the story up neatly and left some work to the imagination. The symbolism and common elements between the two timelines brought them together in a revelatory way, while giving the reader some room to interpret the mystical elements. Yes, the book has mystical elements, which gave the book a big "aha" ending, like the solution of a murder mystery. And none of this happened before a sweet and tragic moment of catharsis.

In short, I loved this book! I highly recommend!

"You, you faggot, are an aardvark, an irrational, everlasting Earth-product, and whether you are ready to accept this or not, you have been, all this time, it must be said, wearing the skins of your enemy."

In this quirky tale, we follow two story lines connected by - yeah, you guessed it - one aardvark. In one tale the reader is transported back to the late 1800s where learn of the naturalist Richard Ostlet. Richard is on a work engagement in Africa, and he's sent a deceased aardvark to his taxidermist bestie Titus Downing in London. You see, aardvarks had yet to be seen in Europe at this time, and Titus is on a mission to make stuffing this bad boy his masterpiece. On the flip side, we've got congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R) in present day Washington DC. The dude is... the opposite of awesomesauce. Every time I think about his character my eyes automatically roll - I can't help it. He's got a creepy obsession with Ronald Reagan and a desire to get ahead in life without actually doing any work. When a mysterious FedEx package that contains - of course! - an aardvark arrives on Wilson's doorstep, it kicks off a hilarious downward spiral that leads to his political career's demise.

I was really digging this book when I first started reading it. The parallels between the two stories are striking, but the stories are different enough from each other that they're still both engaging to read. I believe Anthony is trying to show us that history definitely repeats itself, and situations and events that feel novel likely aren't. This book also struck a good balance of quirky, funky, different weird and not doesn't-make-sense-trying-to-be-weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird weird.

The negatives for me, unfortunately, really pull this book down. One is a personal problem that shouldn't reflect on the caliber of this book but I just can't help it. I have a really hard time consuming and enjoying books/movies/tv shows about narcissistic, self serving, righteous jerkfaces in US politics right now given the current state of affairs. I realize that Wilson is written to be exactly that, but that doesn't make it any easier to read about him without cringing. Second, when I finished reading this tale, I felt unfulfilled. The story of how Wilson came upon his fall from grace was funny and silly, full of little twists and turns. But the overarching reason behind that fall was incredibly obvious and spelled out from the beginning of the book. It left me thinking yes... and? What exactly is the point?

Honestly, I did not have high hopes for this book. I am not usually into books that are super quirky, and I really, really hate things written in the second person. It can be so damn gimmicky. So, really, I should have hated this book. Instead, somehow, it charmed me. I found the quirkiness interesting instead of annoying, and love to hate the second-person narrator. The book has two parallel stories, happening a hundred plus years apart, and both drew me in with interesting characters and viewpoints. Plus, a stuffed aardvark. Highly recommended.

I just.... this wasn't for me. This book has three main characters including a taxidermist in old London and a current Republican senator during his recent campaign. Everything was weird including the way Jessica Anthony chose to write this novel and I wasn't a fan. I don't exactly know how to explain why, it's just... weird and too much?

I am definitely a fan of weird books. I also enjoy the occasional political satire. And a political satire that is, decidedly, very weird? Obviously, I had to read it. Obviously, I’ve read a lot of strange books. But Enter the Aardvark definitely ranks near the top of the list when it comes to exactly how weird it is (this is the only book I’ve ever read involving a taxidermied aardvark). That said, I did really enjoy this. It’s a fun story that is a mix of contemporary political satire and historical fiction. Both storylines are connected by the aardvark.

I did enjoy the historical and modern storylines, but I will admit the contemporary story was more fun. It also took a bit longer for me to get into the historical storyline, so my instinct for the first half of the book was to speed through it. It did get more interesting as the book went on, and I appreciated the parallels between the two stories.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book. It’s extremely difficult to pull off second person POV, but I think Jessica Anthony did it here. I think it worked well for the the modern storyline, and helped differentiate it from the historical story even more. I also just liked the writing style of this book. It was fun to read and felt interesting.

My only real complaint about this book is that it took me a minute to get into it. And, unfortunately, since this is a fairly short book, that means by the time I felt invested in the story, it was halfway over. Still, I did have fun reading it, and would definitely be open to reading more by Jessica Anthony.

My Response will go live at 12:30 EST on April 3, 2020.

Book 686: Enter the Aardvark - Jessica Anthony

This was a weird ass novel. I should've known it by the title when I requested it from NetGalley, but it was even weirder than I expected.* I'm sure I requested it because the blurb mentioned the modern protagonist was in deep denial about his sexuality, but that's all I remember the rest was a weird wonderful surprise as I read it.

This is another dual narrative novel, authors really love those lately, with one portion taking place in modern America and the other taking place in the late 19th century England, and what ties the two together is a preserved Aardvark that arrives/is created at the most inconvenient time.

In general, I would say I enjoyed the book. The two narratives worked independently of each other and probably could've been two separate short stories read fully, but intertwining the narrative further served to highlight the parallels between the two and left questions at the ending of the modern story on whether or not something happened. I found it being broken into only three chapters was an odd decision because there were so many smaller breaks when the narrative shifted, but that was neither here nor there really.

I enjoyed the Brontë family (I now want three puppies and really appreciated the later specific call out was for Anne's Agnes Grey and not Charlotte or Emily's works) and Austen shout outs:

"Enter Rebecca Ostlet's modest two-bedroom flat, which suits her because the parks are where Rebecca goes walking in the afternoon with her three rust-colored Irish setters named after the Brontës—Anne, Charlotte, Emily."

"An ashtray is perched thoughtfully upon a small table by the window next to an assortment of books, the titles of which Downing, whose thoughts remain with the aardvark, can deduce no hidden meaning Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins, Trollope's latest Phineas Redux, and a faded copy of Jane Austen's Persuasion. He notices only the absence of any Dickens and Dickens is is favorite."

I found the modern story more interesting, mostly from it's parallels of Aaron Schock (Wikiepdia link) fall from grace, but the way it was written was incredibly jarring. It was written entirely in the second person (I think) in that everything was "you did this" or "you expected this" and it was weird to read and took a while to adjust. I also felt the exploration of masculinity and the satirical look at the protagonist's thoughts on everything were more engaging and self-involved (definitely not self-reflective).

"Because, like, you are Not Gay, and how many times must you say it? And you don't appreciate it when your staffers tell you to stop posing so gay in pictures, and to stop dressing so gay in your cowboy outfit just like the one Reagan wore, and stop coming your hair that old-fashioned way that's so gay, and stop laughing so gay, shaking hands so gay, smiling with a tilt of your head so gay, and you've worked pretty hard to fight this, and you even had photographers follow you once, into a gym, to photograph you doing something "manly," and you were like, lifting weights in a tank top, showing your guns, and what could be more manly than that? You have no idea why everyone singles you out all the time when there are plenty of people you know, people in positions much more powerful than yours, who vote one way in public and live another in private, and it's hard to blame them; like you, they do not see themselves as hypocrites, they have simply seen how America works, have seen the oily machine of her power, and their desire to be included, to be a part of her Greatness, is so strong that they will create for themselves an Image."

The best part of the above quote is the Not Gay being capitalized and thoroughly reminding me of the book hilariously titled Not Gay and how very clearly the modern protagonist would fit into that no questions asked.

The older story was just as intriguing, but Anthony's writing I felt got in the way. Part of it could be the characterization of the protagonist, I mean she legit says the character loves Dickens, but the length of many of the descriptions and sentences definitely made this a slog at some points:

"The event is free. As the minutes tick by and all Gentlemen have arrived, enter the men from the unskilled professions, these miners, textile mill workers, railway porters all sporting rolled pants, country tweeds, their boots filthy with cola, and from there, in ratty cotton jackets with badly stitched seams, enter the costermongers, appearing for once in public without their rickety vegetable carts; enter the butty-gangs of sewer men, the stench of the toshers and ratcatchers until enter the coal-faced sweepers of both street and chimney, and the men mingle harmoniously, each finding his own kind, the sun is out, it is a very hot day, it is August, and everyone's watching the gay-drunk boys in the theater troupe tossing their fake snouts, scratching the cobblestones with their fake claws, pointing, laughing, as the peaked wooden doors of the All Saints Church across the street bust open and out spill the fat clergymen, rosy-hot in their cassocks—they are leaving the cool vestibule of the church to come View the aardvark—and Downing can sense that it is, at last, finally Time."

I legit fell asleep reading that passage (two sentences). Twice. Ugh. And there comes a point where she talks about abortifacients and I swear listed every single name for them and I just kept going, okay I get it please stop now.

The tragedy of both narratives are fitting. The historical narrative wraps up as only it could with a sarcastic and miserable happily ever after and a finite ending. The modern story leaves more to question (and maybe hope?), but ultimately reiterates that the protagonist remains a lonely disgusting character driven by some urge to put others down no matter the cost and no matter how menial.

Recommendation: It took a while to get into Anthony's writing style, but overall I enjoyed it. The split narrative was an interesting way to tie the two stories involving the same taxidermied aardvark together in a comically tragic farce. I'm not sure I'll read more of Anthony's writing as the offbeat/quirkiness of it did make getting through some parts a little more difficult than I hoped when I thought this would be a light quick read.

*I received a copy of Enter the Aardvark via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

While it's an easy and quick read, I couldn't stay as focused as I'd wanted to. Honestly, the best and most interesting part was about the aardvark. I mean, who wouldn't love to get one of those in the mail? All joking aside, Enter the Aardvark was good, but I wouldn't say it was memorable.

3/5 Stars

This book was so good. I never thought I would fall in love with a character like an aardvark, but I did. This is a hilarious, satirical novel by Jessica Anthony that ties two love stories together. You have Titus Downing and Richard Ostlet and Alexander Paine-Wilson and Greg Tampico who have encounters with the titular aardvark in the novel. I love the way Jessica Anthony portrayed the characters in the book. It also has some repressed sexuality on one character because he tells you time and time again that he is not gay, even though he has been with men his entire life. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Aardvark is one of those few words where it is painfully clear the word has Dutch origins, translates to earth-pig but on doing a quick search I learned the aardvark is in fact a close relative to the elephant. And when you stop to think of it, it does make sense on a level: big ears and an interesting snout.

However, back to Enter the Aardvark, a novel with two POVs which both star the said stuffed aardvark as well as a closeted gay man. Their lives couldn’t be more different, one in the spotlight as a congressman preparing for re-election, the other a reclusive taxidermist. As you have probably guessed they have more in common than just the aardvark and their sexual preferences.

Part of the narrative is in second person, which is something I always need to get used to again, but I find it intriguing at the same time. New however, was the extreme unlikableness of the ‘you’ main character, whose hiding behind snarky remarks and neurotically mentioning the price of everything he gets in contact with.

It is a satire of the American political system where success can turn in the blink of an eye. As such, it works. But the ending, the solving of the mystery of the aardvark I thought was a bit absurd and left me a little disappointed.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!