Loved this book! It was just such a cute read and shows the power of love and family. I will def recommend to friends!

Liked this, but didn’t love it. The Greek chorus of the ghosts in the local cemetery were a riot and provided some legitimate LOLs. This was a solid read, but it was slow going. Didn’t suck me in and compel me to keep reading. Found myself skimming sections that dragged on with descriptions and extraneous characters..

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for this honest review.

I love Annie Harnett’s writing style, and will now be reading anything she has ever or will ever write. I love how the story is told partially by the deceased residents of the small town who now watch on from the cemetery.

While the story does touch on topics that can be heavy, the author manages to keep the book engaging, quirky, and a little magical.

This is one of my favorite books I have read in quite some time. I’m definitely going to select it for the library’s monthly book club!!

This was a cute book – many, many laugh-out-loud moments mixed with poignancy. I think this resonated for me because I mirror similarities with several characters: I am a wildlife fanatic, I have a teaching degree; I have a father suffering memory issues.

You will find intrigue within this book, based on an unlikely ‘group’ of narrators (no spoilers), with often-humorous musings on the townfolk. A special “wildlife park” in New Hampshire may also pique your interest. And if you enjoy magical realism, again, threaded with humor, this book might appeal.

If you’re looking for serious fiction (which is usually my go-to), this reads in a breezy-airy fashion. As the author notes, however, “I am not a writer overly concerned with realism, but I am inspired by true events, and real life is where all my ideas originate.”

There is lots of family love within these pages; I could totally see this as a dramedy on the big screen. So many opportunities for laughter and tears.

This initially was a 3.5 for me, but I rounded up – especially after reading the author’s note at the end … that this book is based, in many ways, on historic fact. I also loved that the author indicated a friend helped her understand that what she was writing was a fairytale. When read/viewed with this lens, the book – which may feel very commercial or even young-adult in genre – shines as a feel-good story for the sake of story.

It’s not generally what I read, but appears to be just what I <i>needed</i> to read!

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and Net Galley for an advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett tells the story of The Starling Family. Clive with a brain disease and sees ghosts and animals, Ingrid who takes care of everyone. Augury the recovering drug addict and his sister who decided not to go to medical school. Their friend who is missing. This book has a lot in it. But it works. I love the cemetery narrators. The history of the park and the original Dr Doolittle. I like how the family all came together even though there was a sad ending. I will recommend this book. Thank you for allowing me to review it.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett. My short synopsis is that this book has a LOT going on but in a good way. There are multiple underlying themes and storylines going on throughout the novel but the author weaves them all together beautifully and in such a creative way. Without giving too much away, I feel like any of the minor plots could've easily been its own story, especially since the story seemed to span many different genres (thriller, romance, sci-fi). The historical research alone was phenomenal and I applaud the author on how in-depth she got with it. I really, really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future!

I really enjoyed this book. The small town characters, dead and alive, were quirky and interesting. I enjoyed the family dynamics and the importance of friendship. The historical information was fun to read about. There were plenty of odd little twists to keep things interesting.

Emma Starling returns to her New Hampshire town at the beginning of "Unlikely Animals," feeling like a failure even though she's barely in her 20s. Born with "healing hands," Emma has always felt pressure to be helpful, organized and well behaved. When she loses her powers, it's both terrible (her dad is sick and she is unable to help him) and freeing. Back home, she has to figure out which of her old patterns (pleasing her mom? fighting with her brother?) make sense and which it's time to jettison. Classic dutiful daughter stuff. But the book goes beyond that, exploring themes of love, marriage, dying, power and wealth as well as this country's opioid crisis. The quirky Greek chorus, made up of the voices of the dead who have been buried in Emma's hometown cemetery, adds an especially interesting touch.

UNLIKELY ANIMALS
BY: ANNIE HARTNETT

This was a delightful gem of a Literary novel that was recommended to me by my Dear friend, Cheri, whose strikingly beautiful review I will provide a link to at the bottom of mine. Seriously, she did this book justice. This was such a charming book to read with quirky characters and it is one that warmed my heart because it had moved me because of the wonderful inclusion of a menagerie full of animals. It seemed to me, to be narrated by some well meaning ghosts from the Maple Street Cemetery. It is about Emma Starling who comes home to a quaint tiny suburban town in New Hampshire where she has to own up to the fact that she hadn't been attending Medical school in California--which was what her mother, father and brother had thought she was doing.

Annie Hartnett has woven together a huge heartfelt cast of lovable characters in this charming tale and who can resist a well told magical tale that has so many animals?

"...what happens to animals after they die. We like to think all the animals are waiting for us, somewhere off this earthly plane..."

And for anyone who holds the belief that we are reunited with our loved ones after we die, this novel helps keep that belief alive. The loving spirits that also inhabit this novel are telling this story as they watch over everybody. You can feel their warmth and caring brimming over the top as they weigh in and the cannot risk letting go, not yet. With the pathos and dynamics that inhabit most families, written with a keen observation and insight, this author has written a truly Original and an Unforgettable story. The kind that has wrestled its way and burrowed deeply into your heart before you realize it. Intimate and at times heartbreaking it is a portrait of humanity. Wry and at times humorous. Do Not Skip This Book!

I couldn't have loved this more and was sad to have read it so fast!

There is a mysterious element about what has happened to Emma's best friend named Crystal. Emma's father has a brain degenerating condition that causes him to hallucinate. She takes a job as a substitute teacher for a small fifth grade class of students at the local Elementary school. Her brother, Auggie has just gotten back from completing a stint in rehab for drug addiction brought on by an all too common trajectory of needing pain killers resulting from an injury sustained playing High school football. It is rumored that Crystal had a drug addiction so say the two police officers who don't bother to look for her because who looks for missing drug addicts they say among themselves.

I really enjoyed this highly original novel and I think that any animal lover will devour this gem of a novel. The ghosts weighing in are harmless and not frightening but along with the small town charm and the wonderful cast of characters make this a fun and exotic reading experience. Five Stars easily!
This is definitely a favorite of 2022. I cannot wait until it publishes to buy my physical hardcover of this fantastic book. Here is the link to Cheri's lovely review: https://www.goodreads.com./review/sho....

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

Thank you to Net Galley, Annie Hartnett and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine Ballantine Books for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#UnlikelyAnimals #AnnieHartnett #RandomHousePublishingGroupBallantineBallantineBooks #NetGalley

It is a rare experience when I will read a book and think to myself either of the following:

"Wow, I could totally read that book again."
"Wow, I want to read another book with these same characters."

This book made me say both things with unabashed gusto.

I loved this book, and in this particular case, it's both easy and hard to explain why. Hartnett has created a world that is immersive and intricate, a picture postcard of a small town that definitely has a complicated underbelly. There is a sad, even profound, quirkiness that embodies this town, like a deeper, more gnarled version of "Gilmore Girls." I laughed out loud several times, but I also had to catch my breath. A few times, I did cry.

Hartnett's characters are flawed, and there is a tender dynamic amidst all of them. You cannot help but root for Emma Starling, the prodigal daughter returning home to take a quick substitute teaching gig at the local school. She has a bunch of vibrant charges under her belt, and Hartnett doesn't hold back with any sanitized, cloying Hallmark-esque wisdom. She tells it like it is, and we're better for it.

I start with that because Hartnett stated in her author's note that this was the initial seed of this work, and that makes me appreciate it more. Emma wants to be liked but is reminded by her father that she shouldn't try too hard; occasionally, she tries to hard and misfires, but you just want to wrap your arms around her (and even this whole town), even if Emma would look at you askance in the process.

The family dynamics here expanding beyond Emma are richly done: Emma and her father Clive, suffering from the beginnings of dementia much to the chagrin of his exasperated wife, have a beautiful relationship, poignant without being melodramatic. Hartnett's narrative voice, done in a unique way through the nature of the dearly departed, helps this and allows us the reader to get insights into these characters without it feeling forced or grandiose.

Hartnett also takes what I can only presume is her own love of animals and imbues it like a clarion call throughout this work. Each chapter starts with an imagined excerpt from a very real naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, who championed wildlife and the natural world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I did not know this was a real figure until afterward, and that made this attribute all the more endearing to me. I think Baynes himself would be honored.

All in all, Annie Hartnett's tragicomic novel, part sardonic whimsy and part heartrending musing, is a delight. I will carry this heartfelt menagerie within me and also look forward to embracing all the animals, both unlikely and otherwise, in my life for years to come.

This review will be posted on Goodreads immediately (March 23), and a condensed version will also be posted on my bookstagram account (@readwithmikey) on the pub date of April 12. A hearty thank you to Random House - Ballantine for the ARC!

Emma Starling returns to her New Hampshire town to say goodbye to her dying father. Clive Starling has a mysterious brain disease, where he is hallucinating small animals and the ghost of a local naturalist. Clive is also obsessed with finding Emma's childhood friend Crystal who has gone missing. Narrated by the ghosts of the Maple Street Cemetery, Emma's journey to rebuild her life and help her father takes her on an unexpected journey.

I don't know that I would have normally picked this up, but I'm so glad I did. This is a heart warming and well written story that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. There is a quirky cast of characters, both human and not, that are painfully real at times. It's a slower paced story, but the story unfolds so skillfully that I can't imagine it any other way.

Don't miss this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Available April 12, 2022.

This was such a refreshing book to read. The way the author incorporated very unusual narrators in the book was absolutely a gift!! Difficult topics to write about yet it was done in such an uplifting way. A must read! Thank you to Random House Publishing Group Ballantine and NetGalley for tnis ARC.

What a positively delightful read! The characters in this novel will live in my memory for quite some time.
The author managed to weave together multiple storylines, myriad characters, and even more than one timeline in a way that made the story richer and more layered.
With charming narration provided by the “residents” of the local cemetery, the novel tells the tale of Emma, the prodigal daughter returning home to help care for her ailing father. There’s a missing person, a drug ring, a musical, and a Russian fox. There’s an entire storyline involving fifth graders. There’s heavy metal, wild animals, love stories, and family dynamics. And somehow it all makes perfect sense.
I loved getting to know the people, ghosts, and animals of Everton, New Hampshire. I will truly miss spending time with them all, and I’m jealous of the next reader who gets to become newly acquainted with them.

I received a complimentary ARC of this title from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book, while mostly pleasant, was just a tad gimmicky. There's a fine line between a clever opening gambit and a tiresome device. Unlikely Animals comes up to that line several times. I appreciated the use of a magical realism filter and the overall absurdist sensibility--the combination brought some much-needed levity to a narrative overrun with heavy topics. There were moments of brilliance, but I found I had to consume this story in small doses over a period of a few weeks. It wasn't compelling enough to stay in the world of it for prolonged periods. The characters felt more like vehicles for the gimmick rather than the gimmick serving them. Their emotional decisions, their evolution is reported rather than shown.

If well-cast, the audiobook has the potential to really elevate the story. It would lend itself well to being performed.

3.5 Stars
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Unlikely Animals. Annie Hartnett had such a fascinating and unique way of telling this story. I liked Emma's story and how she found herself and found the courage to start an authentic life. This novel based out of a small town was a quirky, heartwarming and fun but seemed like it had a bit too much going on. I enjoyed reading it for the most part. It just needs to be focused on the truly important parts of the story.

“Your father has a new friend,”her mother explained. “He’s a friend to all creatures,”her dad corrected. “I mentioned it on the phone,”her mother said, reminding Emma with her eyes that they were not using the word “hallucination”or the phrase “visions caused by brain disease.”The hallucinations had started out small. First there were rabbits in the kitchen that Ingrid had to pretend to shoo out the door. Then the cats showed up in the Meriden College classroom, causing quite a lot of confusion in Clive’s senior poetry seminar, and a week or two after that, the ghost of the long-dead naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes had arrived.
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This is a quirky funny heartwarming story that is at least partially narrated by ghosts! How often can you say that?

Emma returns home to find her father Clive needing 24/7 care after he starts having vivid hallucinations. Clive sees animals, and he sees the ghosts that used to inhabit his small new Hampshire town. Clive was writing a book about Baynes, another resident and now ghost, who had his own menagerie.

I don't usually read books like this but I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I was expecting.

Thank you netgalley and Ballantine books for giving me an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a fun mod podge of characters put into a quirky storyline! This was a unique read with real problems we address each day with an element of supernatural.

Your players are: an elderly father who has dementia and talks to ghosts, the daughter med school dropout and healer, the son who is vulnerable to addiction, the mother who’s eyes are focused elsewhere, the missing friend that the town is looking for, and then the ghosts that seem to be narrating the story!

I wasn’t clear on what the real story was and where it was going. It was a slower read for me until the end when it wraps all the lines together in a perfect ending. I did love the end!!

Read this for a snap shot at a real family who struggles, yet there’s a level of humor that makes it a lightish read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House-Ballantine for the advance ecopy in return for my honest review.

Unlikely Animals is a unique novel. It tells the story of a young adult woman named Emma Starling who is traveling back home from California to a small New Hampshire town not quite disgraced, but definitely disappointed. She is returning for many reasons, not least that her father Clive is in the throes of some sort of odd mental deterioration where he sees hallucinations, and frequently forgets things. She also had to tell her family that she did not actually attend medical school, and had lost the “healing touch”, that she had been born with. This story is part finding oneself, part missing person mystery, part redemption for both Emma and her brother Auggie, and part retelling of a strange historical character.
I liked, but didn’t quite love this book. It almost seemed as if there were one too many plot points that went into the story, or two different books that were melded together. It was fun to think about Harold Baynes and his pet fox and zany animal shenanigans, but I felt that it didn’t really add to the main plot. I also didn’t understand the choice of the narrator. I think that the author may have wanted an omniscient narrator and chosen who she did, but it was quirky and could be distracting.
I did really enjoy the side plot about Emma going to teach, and the fifth graders beginning to accept her. The play was really funny and well done at the end. I do wish that Emma and Auggie had more interactions because the brother/sister dynamic felt very authentic. I also enjoyed the character of Clive too. He loved life even as it was being taken from him.
This novel spoke a lot about death, but in spite of the subject matter it was a very uplifting book. It also spoke a lot to second chances, and I like how none of the characters were perfect but deserved to be happy anyway.

An unusual read with elements of dementia, a missing person, graveyard voices, and domesticated wild animals. Dare I say, "quirky?" There were some amusing sidelights, but overall I didn't feel there was enough substance in the story for me to give a higher rating. Others may certainly disagree. "Different strokes for different folks" as the saying goes.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

What a delightfully quirky book! The POV was certainly unusual, but I found myself laughing out loud at multiple points with the commentary of the cemetery residents. I enjoyed both the comedic and dark elements of this book but do agree with some others than it takes a minute to get your bearings with all of the different storylines going on. Overall definitely a recommended read!