IN 2003 I read Haddon’s book, “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, about a boy with ASD who is trying to find out what happened to the neighbor dog? I loved it. Brilliant writing. Unique story telling. Fast forward twenty years. Haddon’s new book of short stories touches on mental health, family, Greek mythology and of course animals and monsters. Dogs, foxes, apes, deer and more connect these stories. While the animals are clear, the monsters in this collection could be both animals or human. I loved a lot of these stories, but there were a few about Greek mythology that didn’t tickle my fancy. Wasn’t for me. Overall, a good collection.
3.5 dogs wagging their tails.

I don't really like short stories, but I like Mark Haddon so I figured we'd give it a shot. It was good, but very very dark. Obviously some stories were far better than others, and they were all varying in length, but I think the common theme (other than their darkness) was that they just ended so suddenly. There was little to tie up a lot of the stories, none having any semblance of finality which drives me insane. I h.a.t.e open endings or feeling like I'm missing something so it did not sit well for me.

Other than that though, the writing was amazing. It didn't take long to be fully emerged in the story which oftentimes for something so short it's hard to do. Definitely not sure where to rate this, so to b e safe we're going to go very mid level. If you enjoy short stories, or sad ones, this is a really good book. If you like well written and interesting ones, also a good one. But if you don't like short stories, unfinished/rushed/ambiguous endings (like me) you may no love it.

Thank you so much for this ARC!