This book is the story of a New Hampshire town. In particular, it focuses on Emma, who is returning home disillusioned from her own failures coupled with her family's and town's expectations of her. Her father is terminally ill and recently had an affair, and her brother is a recovering heroin addict. The story primarily centers on the disappearance of Emma's best friend, Crystal Nash, and the fluctuating relationships that Clive Starling, Emma's father, maintains over the course of his illness. It provides an insightful look into the intricacies of family dynamics and childhood friendship. Clive's illness is excellently portrayed, and the issue of the opioid crisis is sensitively addressed. The writing style is beautiful, and the choice of narrator is a unique one that contributes to the overall safe, cozy feel of the book. I would recommend this book to anyone feeling lost, anyone coping with addiction or a terminal illness, and anyone who is looking for a story of self-discovery that is beautifully told.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett is a novel full of history, family drama, small town mysteries, humor, and personal growth. The plot sounded intriguing; Emma is a young woman born with what her family and friends call “the charm”. Growing up she was able heal minor ailments just by touching someone. After graduating college Emma returns to the small town she grew up in to figure out what she was gong to do with the rest of her life… her healing touch is gone. Another reason for returning home was to help care for her dying father. Upon returning home Emma learns that her former best friend has been missing for months.

Throughout the novel we learn more about Emma’s past family drama. A big part of the story relates to Emma’s father’s declining health. Clive is forced to retire from his college teaching job due to hallucinations of small animals and his frequent conversations with a ghost named Harold. Harold’s character is actually based on a real person, Ernest Harold Baynes. Excerpts from Harold’s published works are presented that help tie different parts of the novel together. Another unique thing about the novel is that the “narrators” are residents of the local cemetery. The inclusion of these characters serve to also help move the story forward.

I enjoyed the story and really wanted to see what happened to everyone. I could relate to Emma’s character feeling a little lost and unsure of what to do with her life. The mystery of what happened to her friend Crystal also pulled me in; I really wanted to see if there’d be any resolution (there was). The novel touches on a lot of important issues: family drama, forgiveness, figuring out what to do with your life, how the opioid crisis affects not only the person with addiction but their family as well. While these are all serious topics, the novel doesn’t feel too heavy. There are enough funny moments sprinkled throughout the story to keep it lighthearted. I gave it 4.5 stars for two main reasons. First, I felt like sometimes the historical excerpts from Harold’s work distracted the reader from the main story. But, maybe if I read it again they would make more sense. Second, the ending. Without giving away any spoilers I’ll just say that I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. Everything was resolved neatly but I was still left with questions. I wish some things were expanded upon a bit more.

I loved all the various parts of this story and how it all came together. There are so many different things going on but all work together. The cemetery is my favorite part. Both funny and heart-warming.

I am a big fan of quirky humor and loveable characters and so Unlikely Animals hit the sweet spot for me, sort of a Dr. Dolittle in Wonderland. It is part historical fiction, part family drama, part mystery and, my favorite, part magical realism. I would recommend readers start by reading the author's notes on her research at the end of the book first. No spoilers but I think it makes the story even more special. There are serious topics here including death, dementia, depression, addiction, and a missing loved one but it is never dark or brooding and no trigger warnings seem needed.

There is something very loveable about a story where a family and a community earnestly struggle to come together, weathering whatever storms come their way. I love the little town of Everton, New Hampshire where the omniscient (within town limits) dead watch over the community, cheering them on but not meddling too much for fear of poofing into the unknown. I love a story with animals both real and imagined and I especially love a story the author has so clearly put her heart and soul into, creating a joyful story based on true events with a bit of added magic.

Thank you Ballantine Books and Netgalley for providing a DRC for my enjoyment and review. #AnnieHartnett
#UnlikelyAnimals

Sorry, but I like my fiction to be a bit more grounded. Initially I bought into the substitution of graveyard voices for the omniscient narrator, but it got old fast. Even though I read the Author's Note and learned the reason for writing a book about a "real life Dr. Doolittle" and an exotic animal camp (owned by hunter-millionaires, so, not a protective enclosure but a dead bird walking compound), it didn't engage me. Added to all this the dogleg plot involving the opioid crisis seemed a strange extension even though it is incorporated into the central family's plotline on several levels. Hartnett says she felt she had to address the crisis given the situation in New Hampshire, and I respect that. But I became impatient and ended up putting the book down to move on.

I found this to be a very fun book. I really liked the cemetery resident narrators' snarky and encouraging comments. While dealing with some potentially heavy topics (death and dying, drug addiction, missing persons, infidelity and lost souls trying to find their way in the world) it remained light hearted and upbeat in a quirky way.

Incredible. This has jumped to my favorite book of the year so far. Weird, poignant, funny, and through provoking. I loved the interwoven stories of the historical figures. I just loved everything about this book. Now I want to get a fox.

I read to 75% of this book and I could not finish it. The premise for this book was good but the author threw in way too many characters. The ghosts from the graveyard added nothing to the story, just were another disruption in the storytelling.

I was so excited to read this book and so disappointed in the end.

thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title

I loved everything about this book! It is such a charming, heartwarming story about a father that is dying of a brain disease and believes he is seeing animals everywhere. The story takes place in Everton where everyone knows each other. The story touched on some serious topics but it was all kept in a good light. You get attached to the characters and find yourself so drawn into their story.
I will admit I was preparing myself for a very sad ending, to dodge spoilers it may or may not be sad but it is told in a way that you will enjoy. This is such a great read from start to finish! I can’t wait for everyone to meet these charactersr!

A HUGE thank you to Netgalley and Random House & Ballantine for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Unlikely Animals, by Annie Hartnett, is such a charming, unique book that blew me away! Set in rural New Hampshire, we follow the journey of Emma as she returns home from California to her dying father. Her father has a mysterious disease that is making him hallucinate animals and a dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes. Frequently narrated by the ghosts in the local cemetery, we follow this family as the father Clive, spirals downward, Emma tries to find her footing back in her hometown, her brother reestablishes himself in town after a stint in rehab and their mother is hooking up with Clive’s doctor. The family is fractured and Emma is just doing her best. Then Clive orders a fox from Russia because Ernest Harold Baynes told him too and won’t give up on trying to find Emma’s childhood friend who went missing and everyone else is convinced died of a drug overdose. The novel is tragic, the novel is funny, the novel is heartbreaking. This novel this stunning.

Unlikely Animals is a quirky story about the Starling family, narrated by the residents of the Maple Street Cemetery. Daughter Emma returns to the small New Hampshire town she grew up in, to discover her childhood friend is missing and the only person looking for her is Emma’s father Clive, who happens to be dying of an unnamed brain disorder and often hallucinates animals.
I loved this book, and all its strangeness. The ghosts in the cemetery added their commentary on the happenings around town throughout the story, and they more than once had me laughing.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for and advanced copy of this book for my honest review.

This is a book about a small town in New Hampshire, a friendship, a missing girl, a new romance, a group of ghosts in a cemetery giving commentary, a hunting preserve, the opioid crisis, a father dying and many other things.
The problem I had with it was I felt the author just tried to do too much and I never could figure out what the story was actually about. So many of the elements were interesting and might have been a great story in and of themselves but too many plot lines seemed added at random. I felt like I was at a loud family discussion where everyone was trying to talk at once. The story got lost in the many voices.

The primary plot line: Emma comes back home from failed attempt at medical school to help take care of her father who has a brain disorder and is dying. Her father has lost his job, alienated his wife due to having an affair, and her brother is just home from rehab after treatment for addiction to first opioids and then heroin due to a sports injury. Emma soon learns that her best friend has gone missing and no one but her father seems to care. Her father is hallucinating but one of the ghosts he sees was/is actually a person who was a naturalist who lived in the town (this ghost has several chapters telling about his life). From there we meet many of the people both alive and dead who lived in this town. The story advances in several directions, Emma gets involved with an old flame, takes a job as an elementary school teacher, drugs are found in the classroom, a trial determines who is guilty and the friend stays missing. Eventually we find out what happened to the friend, and several of the plot lines are pulled together well, a feat in itself. I almost gave 3 stars for how the author managed to pull it all together.

Early on in this book I felt it was not for me. The writing style reminded me of Thing in Jars by Jess Kidd which I was not a big fan of. If you liked that book I think you might like this novel. I never really engaged with the many characters and plot lines.

Ms. Hartnett balances the weight of topics like dementia & death with humor and eclectic characters along with an equally eclectic setting. Unlikely Animals is a very unique portrait of small town life.

Spoiler: this book was an absolute delight.

Emma has returned to her native Everton, NH after dropping out of med school in California to spend time with her father Clive who is suffering from a degenerative brain disease that causes hallucinations of alarming numbers of small animals, as well as commune with the spirit of Ernest Harold Baynes, the real-life inspiration for Dr. Dolittle. Clive has just been let go from his professor job at the local university after a meltdown in the classroom, shooing imaginary rabbits out and embracing a student. Emma’s mother Ingrid already has her hands full with three full-time jobs as university librarian, curator of the local historical society, and caretaker of the Corbin Mansion, along with Emma’s brother Auggie fresh out of his most recent rehab stint. What Emma’s family haven’t told her is that her high school Crystal also fell into opioid addiction, and has been missing for several months, even though her father has been singlehandedly championing the search for her, the police assuming just another casualty of addiction. All this is narrated by the departed residents of Everton buried at the Maple Street Cemetery.

This all may sound rather grim, and while there is definitely an element of grief and loss to the story, it’s well-balanced by compassion, hope and joy, and every character likable without being too saccharine. What Emma intended as a brief stay, turns into signing on as guardian to her declining father, as a long-term substitute teacher for a spirited group of 5th graders, and also digging into Crystal’s disappearance. I thought perhaps it was the NH setting, the appearance of a bear, a ramshackle old building and quirky characters that reminded me of earlier John Irving, though was validated by the author’s mention of him in the acknowledgements. The ending was a bit off the wall and even a little off the rails, but somehow it was fitting and absolutely worked for me.

I can’t remember the last time a book kept me up thinking about it, and a little sad that I won’t have the experience of reading it for the first time again. Will surely be one of my top reads of the year, and will bump Rabbit Cake up on my TBR backlist. 5+ stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Annie Hartnett and Ballantine Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Sorry too say this book was not for me.

This book started out with some fun antics from the dearly departed, but once I arrived at about the 50% mark, I felt that we were tripping down the road to the a drug induced nirvana.

It was a story of a former professor who is forced into retirement because of some offensive behavior and seems to see rabbits, rats, and one dearly departed running amuck. He is on the outs with his wife for he had an affair and his son is a recovering addict with a daughter who had a case of recovering hands who just returned home to the abode of her parents.

Emma, the daughter gets herself a substitute teacher job sans a license or teaching credential by just walking into the principal’s office where the secretary semi forces her to take up the applications. In what seems like moments later, she is hired to replace a fifth grade teacher who is on leave because her husband is up on drug charges. She is ill equipped to handle her class of eight (say what) but muddles through with movies, watching court TV, and bringing her slightly off father to school! She has fifth graders who have an hour of silent reading, (absurd) and some who suck their thumb, ( a no no for any child who doesn’t want to be attacked on the playground) and during a musical about the Titanic has a student have a hard on.

It’s an absurd story that becomes something out of a poor Twilight Zone show. I mean really where does this 💩come from?

To say the ghosts add something to the story seems heavenly but they don’t do heaven and you won’t arrive there by reading this tripe. 🐀🐿🐇🐕🐶🐰🦊 (some of the animals you will meet in the tripe!?

Apologies to those that loved it come to all with a greeting 🙋‍♀️ from outlier land.
🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️warning stay away from this one if you are looking for a book that makes sense.
Thanks goes to NetGalley for a copy of this book! 🤦‍♀️

💙💙💙💙💙
Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett is one of the most original, unique, and delightful books I have read in a LONG time. I predict great things for this book, which will be available on April 12th. The author uses the true story of a famous New Hampshire naturalist blended into a fictional modern-day tale. The lead protagonist is Emma Starling, who had, at one time, “healing” hands but returns home after college, having lost her confidence and power. Emma feels the need to reconnect to her beloved father, whose brain disease manifests in moments of lucidity combined with crazed hallucinations. Dad speaks with the dead and sees animals. His son is a recovering heroin addict, and his wife cannot cope with her hubs increasingly bizarre behaviors. Everyone, it seems, wants to be told that someone is proud of them. They want validation. Unlikely Animals is a unique book that’s charming, witty, and intensely inspiring. There are so many moving parts to this book with characters that blend beautifully.  My favorite part is the backstory of the residents of the local graveyard (dead people), who narrate parts of the story and are so witty. Who knew there are behavioral rules in the afterlife? Part literary fiction, family fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, but mostly, for me, magical realism. You have to read this book. It is already a big contender for my favorite book of 2022. @annie_hartnett
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Thank you Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this book which was witty, charming and absolutely entertaining. @ballantines @netgalley #ballantinebooks #arc #pubApril #literaryfiction #magicalrealism #funny #historicalfiction #newhampshire

#reading #books #bookstagram #book #booksofinstagram #JustBooksBookstagram #bookish #booklove #readinglife

Unlikely Animals is a quirky and imaginative tragicomic novel, unlike anything I have read in quite a while. It is populated with an offbeat cast of flawed, lovable, and very human characters and a Greek chorus of ghosts who keep up with the town from the cemetery and partially narrate the story. At the book's core is Emma, a young woman adrift and weighed down by expectations of a supernatural gift she was born with and lost. Trying to decide what to do with her life, Emma returns home to help care for her terminally ill father, Clive, who has a brain disease that is causing him to have hallucinations. In addition, Emma's entire family is struggling individually and as a unit against a backdrop of a small New Hampshire town grappling with an opioid crisis. The layered plot also includes the search for a missing woman and the ghost of Ernest Harold Baynes, the real-life naturalist, and writer who kept wild animals as pets. The main characters go through satisfying growth arcs while dealing with illness, change, loss, and forgiveness. Yet, these weighty topics are balanced out by moments of comedy and warmth. Annie Harnett is a talented writer who had me at turns heartbroken and laughing, particularly at the ghosts. This book was different, and I mean that in the best way. I have not read her previous novel, Rabbit Cake, but I plan to now. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Ballentine Books for the opportunity to review this ARC.

This book really took me by surprise. I went into it blind and it didn’t disappoint. Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett takes place in a small New Hampshire town, and tells the story of a family and a place trying to get by. It’s an emotionally charged, thoughtful study of place and character, filled with heart and had me laughing through tears. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unlikely Animals has been popping up in my recommendations for a while now and I am so glad I finally took the plunge! This quirky book is a conceptual menagerie that will make you feel all of the emotions…ALL OF THEM. Though the characters in this story are dealing with tragedy in its many forms, their journey shows how life in all of its complexity still moves forward. It is funny, sad, clever and everything in between. This is a must read for anyone who loves literary fiction and doesn’t mind some speculative elements tossed in.

The small town of Everton, New Hampshire rarely sees miracles. That is, not until Emma Starling was born with a gift for healing. With her eyes set on becoming a doctor and a desire to leave her complicated life in New Hampshire behind, Emma left for California with no intention of coming back. But when Emma’s father, Clive, has been diagnosed with a terminal, degenerative brain disease that is causing him to hallucinate and strike up a close friendship with the ghost of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes. Things haven’t gone so well for Emma either and what should have been a triumphant return is overshadowed by a crushing truth: the gift of healing is gone. To top it all off, Emma’s best friend from High School has gone missing. But despite all of this hardship, Emma still has the fine folk of Maple Street Cemetery cheering her on.

The story is told through a Greek chorus of ghosts residing in Maple Street Cemetery. Being omniscient of all things in Everton, the mystery that was Emma’s life in California is very quickly revealed. Usually, it would bother me how quickly the information is divulged, but there is so much more to this story that it is almost a necessity. Despite having an omniscient narrator, Hartnett has still found a way to allow the story to gradually unfold and keep the reader guessing. The gossipy ghosts also have such a charming and sincere narrative voice that it is easy to get sucked in and feel like part of their group. I could see how the narrative style could be off-putting to some readers, but I quickly grew to like it.

What really makes this a stand out novel for me was that it felt true in a way that’s hard to express. Though faced with tragedy and struggle, the characters in this novel still feel like they are really living. There are still moments of joy, triumph, and comedy even while Clive’s condition deteriorates and Emma struggles to find her place after losing something that has always defined her and made her special. The affirmation and support the ghosts give to all of these experiences is a really beautiful and masterful touch that rounds out the whole experience.

Special thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC!

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑬𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏’𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝒖𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒚, 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇; 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒄𝒂𝒓; 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔. 𝑾𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒐𝒏, 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒌𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒐𝒎𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒔.

I couldn’t wait to read Unlikely Animals, as Annie Hartnett’s novel, Rabbit Cake, had me hooked. If you haven’t read her debut novel, I highly recommend it. Her newest forthcoming novel is another original, at times a bit wacky, strange tale full of humans and animals, both living and dead. It seems no one is truly at rest here, troubled by their worries and the entanglements of others, especially Emma Starling herself. Emma was born with the gift of healing. Her father just knew she was special! When she became best friends with Crystal Nash (the tough new girl), together the two ran a healing business of sorts called “The Gentle Touch Society.” Crystal was great managing things, coming as she did from a life without money, even when she was just a teenager. Maybe a little envious of the mansion Emma lives in. She always encouraged her best friend to use her gift for profit, until things soured. Did the gift fizz out, was it ever even genuine to begin with? She has her doubts. When Emma graduated high school, she left the amateur business, Crystal and the town of Everton, New Hampshire behind for medical school in California. The friendship took a nosedive, the two fell out of contact, with Crystal feeling she would be stuck forever in their small town. Twenty-two now, Emma is coming home feeling like a failure, having dropped out, in fact, she never even made it to orientation. She has her secrets, but the dead can hear them. Bad enough she is returning with the weight of her choices, but her father, Clive, is dying of a mysterious, degenerative brain disease, and doing all sort of abnormal things, like seeing rabbits in the kitchen. There is a rift between them based on other incidents, can she forgive him, now that they are on borrowed time? Her brother Auggie is a mess, a former star athlete who has a little ‘pill problem’ following serious injury, his future upended. It seems her entire family has lost the very things that once seemed to mark them for sunny, happy life.

More unsettling, Emma’s mother tells her that Crystal is missing and has been for months. Back in her childhood bedroom, every worry swirls through her head. Every disaster she now has to face makes her homecoming far less charmed. Is it possible Crystal just escaped the town? Or could it be something more sinister? Why don’t the authorities care? Emma feels incredibly guilty about how everything turned out. Her father has another hallucination, Ernest Harold Baynes. Baynes was a naturalist, a writer and New England’s very own Dr. Doolittle. Baynes came to live in Corbin Park with all creatures of the earth. The man and his wife had wild animals in their own home, and his ghost is the inspiration when Clive makes a secret, pricey purchase that will throw his marriage in an uproar. Even Emma’s mother, Ingrid, has her limits and Clive has made a mess of things now!

Emma finds work as a substitute teacher, deals with her father’s madcap antics, flirts with a guy who was years ahead of her in high school, and investigates Crystal’s disappearance. The reader is privy to local ghosts in the cemetery and all their commentary, the many ‘hallucinations/visitations’ between Harold and Clive and the emotional turmoil of every character. There is also a rich history and asides about Harold, his many animals and his relationship with his wife Louise. Together they photographed wildlife and were very important to Corbin Park, conservation. I think most readers will be curious about Baynes, I met he and his wife for the first time inside this fictional tale. It’s a gorgeous story, in fact, Crystal’s brother, Auggie’s, struggles are a dose of reality in such a fun, supernatural (with the ghosts) sort of tale. Fun novel with it’s tender moments. It’s a tale anyone would enjoy, but especially aficionados of ghosts, animals, healing and nature. Again, I would be remiss not to remind readers of Annie Hartnett’s debut novel, Rabbit Cake. I didn’t officially review it, just stumbled upon it when it came out and devoured it. I should remedy that and write a review.

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

Random House

Ballantine