A young man has been banished to a psychiatric hospital by his detestable rich father. His strange neurological disease has put him in a wheelchair, with the side effect of opening his mind to the speech of animals. He doesn't take long to make fluffy and feathered friends around the block, and he's now eager to take the next big step and make his first human friend. Only two problems: he has very little experience with human interaction, and not all animals approve of his newfound gift. With deep empathy and brutally honest humor, this novel crafts from slice-of-life sketches a tender portrait of self-reinvention that dares laugh in the face of life's everyday absurdities.

It was a interesting premise but I thought the writing was a bit sophomoric. I had a hard time following along.

This book kind of snuck up on me. I didn't know what to expect and didn't have any expectations about it. It started out like most stories do but soon the characters had my attention. By the end of the book I found that I want to know more about Gus, El Brujo, and all the other delightful characters in the book. The drama with a couple of neighbors added to my desire to learn more,

This is a very short and intriguing book. It reminded me very much of the type of stories people shared in my creative writing classes. That’s not an insult— it’s just very much outside the lines of current mainstream fiction. It’s an interesting premise and good representation of a disabled protagonist.

I was drawn in by the cover. I got bogged down in the middle, so I skipped to the end, and the ending made me curious about how we got there, so I went back and read the rest of it. It's a very unusual story and there were moments of real insight. I am going to take a look at the author's other work/