Rated 3.5 really.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Tandem Books and Xpresso Reads for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

STRONGER TOGETHER

To be honest, the thing that appealed to me about Planting Wolves in the first place was the magical realism angle...but it turned out to be less prominent than I expected. Some of the far-out things that certain characters experience - and forgive me if I can't elaborate further, because I don't want to spoil the book for you - aren't necessarily ambiguous enough to keep a foot in magical realism, though they are all, indeed, filtered through a surreal lens. I did, however, enjoy both the writing and the clever format: six seemingly separated tales whose main characters pop up (always unexpectedly) in what is, for all purpose, someone else's story. Some times these featurings provide us with insight about a character's past or future; other times they simply bring us a different perspective about the same situation. This creates a lively, engaging reading experience, punctuated by those little (or big) "haha!" moments that, in my case, make all the difference between going over a series of separated short stories and a combination of the same.

ANTIHERO CODE

Let's get it out of the way: the characters in Planting Wolves (except for Rodney) aren't particularly likeable, and most of the times, that's an understatement. The fact is, they're not supposed to be. They nurture their loneliness, if for different reasons, or hurt other people trying to achieve their goals, and the only redeeming thing about them is that, in some cases (Mrs. Randall), they're just trying to find their place in the world by pushing back at the boundaries that have been imposed on them. Despite their determination to achieve the things they want, and their lives often intertwining - or at least brushing - they all seem both uprooted and incapable to reach out to one another (or to anyone), and ultimately, even to get in touch with themselves. This ties in with the "planting wolves" metaphor from the title, which is explained in one of the stories: in order to repopulate a certain Alaskan place with them, two couples of wolves got released in a controlled environment, except their offspring ended up turning on one another and perishing altogether.

NEED FOR CLOSURE

If you're the kind of reader who cherishes a neat ending, you might have some difficulties with this collection. Some of the characters (like the Writer) get closure in someone else's story; but most of them remain in a sort of suspended animation, and you either have to imagine your own ending, or to draw a moral from the story as it is - unless you choose to simply see Planting Wolves as a tableau of human misery caused by the absence of compassion (and/or self-compassion). Sometimes a single character seems to have more than one history, because we follow them in different timelines and/or through the eyes of different people (Nelly) or we are told apparently conflicting stories about them, though they are supposed to be set in the same time frame (Mrs. Randall). Is it a product of magical realism, or of a prismatic outlook on the human existence? Is it a way to state that our life, just like Doctor Who's TARDIS, is bigger on the inside? Whatever the answer, this book is meant to make you think, and for that alone (well, that and the mature, quotable prose) is definitely worth a few rereads.

Though I've recently read several novels with a similar interconnected multi-speaker format (There, There; Girl, Woman, Other; Big Little Lies), I found this book creatively constructed. There is a level of absurdity in some of the stories while others feel normal and sad, but a thread of each relates to a point of another person's chapter and story. Sometimes those connection points are unexpected which is a nice affect.

Mrs. Randall's story was probably my favorite. Her dreams in adulthood are unrealized, but at the end of her life, she time-travels through her Alzheimer's which is a beautiful thought (and I hope not insensitive to the true pain of the disease.)

The title of the book "Planting Wolves" (Mrs. Randall's husband studies literally planted wolves) leaves room for much thought. Is this about people being planted in unnatural or unwanted circumstances and the pain and process that ensues? I'm not sure there is resolution in the book, but there is much to ponder over: unexpected painful experiences in life, the idea of a savior, grappling with intimacy and connection.

My experience reading this short story collection was very similar to reading "Mothers" by Chris Power, and not just because they're both short story collections and I got them both from NetGalley.

Their themes are very similar (isolation, co-dependence, abuse, feeling trapped and lost, etc), and they both deal with those themes in the same way: by being horribly depressive. There's no inkling of hope to be found here. Everything is dealt with in a matter-of-fact way, and sometimes the narration was almost voyeuristic, "Look how terrible this person is/ look how sad they are, let's revel in that an uncomfortably long amount of time" and I wanted to scream "Just leave them alone, aren't they sad enough??!".

The purpose of the collection wasn't to be a comforting fluffy read, so it definitely got the reaction it wanted from me (meaning: I was extremely uncomfortable the entire time and I almost dreaded having to continue reading, I hate DNFing books), but I don't think it achieved its actual purpose of "being very real and unflinching about isolation and other important topics", either. It kind of sensationalized all those issues at times and it wasn't sitting well with me. Also, I can't tell if the sexism throughout was the author's or the characters' (I'm pretty sure it's the former)

What did I like about this book? I liked that all the stories were connected (I always love that in short story collections), and I liked some parts, like Mrs. Randall's chapter, or Rodney's preternatural stigmata, but that's about it.

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.

Thank you to NetGalley and TANDEM Books for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I really didn't like or care about this book at all.

This is a short story collection following a bunch of people and their stories are interlinked in some way. I did not like or care about any of the characters, they were all terrible people in my opinion and not interesting whatsoever. More than that, they were all looking for meaning in their lives and it was just boring to follow their journey. If your life is so depressing, why not do something about it? Just a thought.

I can't name one thing I liked about this book, I just feel like I wasted my time reading it and will never get it back...