This was an interesting, though not exactly enjoyable read. There were aspects that felt decidedly uncomfortable, but that was the intention. I will say, i won't be forgetting "Animal Instinct" anytime soon.

Rachel’s conventional life has completely unraveled around her in a way she never could have imagined. Recently divorced and in her 40s, she decides to jump in at the deep end, using dating apps to explore her independence and sexuality for the first time.

However her foray into the dating world unfortunately coincides with the beginning of the Covid pandemic, when fear and confusion permeated every social interaction. As Rachel grapples with her evolving identity, she must also continue to fulfill her responsibilities as a devoted mother and a dedicated employee, all while trying to deflect her toxic ex-husband's cruel resentments and expectations that she’s now outgrown.

Disillusioned by love yet yearning for connection, she decides to create an AI companion- Frankie -short for Frankenstein, to be her ideal mate. Gathering bits and pieces from her dating escapades, she diligently feeds the good aspects of her various lovers into her program, confident she can create her perfect person.

This evocative novel is a meditation on the need for human connection despite all the heartbreak relationships can cause. Shearn’s luminous writing is especially trenchant when it comes to characters’ struggles with gender roles and in the description of the general malaise, uncertainty and possibility of the early pandemic era.

Ultimately this deliciously witty novel incisively explores themes of love, friendship, identity, female rage and what it means to truly be alive and fully inhabit your body as a woman in the world.

Animal Instinct has a sharp, satirical premise—divorced mom Rachel Bloomstein builds an AI chatbot to create the perfect lover—but the execution is uneven. The pandemic setting feels more like a backdrop than a necessary element, and Rachel’s endless romantic misadventures can get repetitive. While the book is darkly funny and offers clever commentary on modern dating and technology, it sometimes lacks emotional depth, making it hard to fully invest in Rachel’s journey. Fans of Big Swiss might enjoy its quirky, provocative style, but it doesn’t always stick the landing.

Okay now that I’m on day 5 of the flu (and on the up and up) we are back to book reviews!!!

Animal Instinct - by @amyshearnwrites

Rachel is having a terrible time. In the midst of a divorce, raising three kids, and boom COVID-19 hits. Just like everyone else during this time, she’s feeling quite lonely. So like everyone else in the world she decides to hit up the apps. Newly dating for the first time since college, she explores everything she thought was taboo and begins to wonder, what if instead of looking for the perfect person, I could just create them?

This book was so incredibly hypnotic and kept me entertained since the first page. I loved the authors voice and verbiage she uses in this book and women of all ages can relate to something in this book of feminine rage. I recommended it to all who love a weird lit fit book just as much as I do.

Thank you @netgalley and @putnambooks for the eARC 🫶🏼

This is another book I was SO excited to read! The main character is so relatable especially during the setting. Set in NYC during covid Rachel is in her 40s, recently divorced, and my her self. This book roped me in from the beginning and I would recommend this book.

When I read the description of this book I felt I could relate to Rachel as a mother, as a divorcee, as someone who wants a little bit of freedom and attention, and I expected Animal Instinct to resonate with me for those reasons. Unfortunately this book missed the mark in so many ways. It's difficult to care about any one of the things going on in Rachel's life when there's no depth to her relationships: with her kids, her ex husband, her best friend, anybody she meets are just shells of humans who speak but have no soul. Her foray into the casual sex lifestyle at the very beginning was empowering, it was like, "Yes you go girl!" but these became so repetitive. It didn't feel necessary to have her go on SO many sexual escapades, when the same could have been said with just a couple of quality interactions, that would have been able to keep up the page count plus give the readers something to juicy to savor, instead of these bland, hollow characters. For most of the book it was the same thing over and over: go on dates, feed info to AI, rinse, repeat. I feel like the author could have sacrificed a lot of time spent talking about superficial nothings and given some actual depth and nuance to anyone or any situation. The AI aspect was incredibly disappointing as well, it was handled like an afterthought, as if the most important part of this book is actually just crapping on marriage and making sure everyone knows that marriage is hell or whatever.

The pandemic aspect was written about in such a vacuum. In real life the pandemic was incredibly difficult, full of sickness and death, and a country falling apart dividing people left and right. But for Rachel the BLM protest was just something for her to check out on her way to her umpteenth date to bang a random whoever. So tone deaf, very aggravating. The only reason I kept reading this book was because I expected the AI to do something exciting, but it just kind of dribbled on and really didn't do anything "important" until the end, once I had wasted hours of my life. The ending itself was so clunky and awkward and nonsensical. I honestly hated Rachel by the end of this book, especially her needlessly reminding us how white and privileged she is. The writing also felt extremely low effort. There was no poetry in the prose, nothing to save the boring story. This book was absolutely not it for me and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know.

This unfortunately ended up being a DNF for me at the 45% mark. I was trying to stick with the novel despite things that weren't working for me; the amount of telling rather than showing, the over-explanations of dating apps & filtering through people, as well as the amount of things that occurred 'off page' that could have added more to the story. Once I hit the line about Rachel attending her birthright trip to Israel I had to set the book down as it does not align with my core values. I think ultimately Shearn used a lot of elements for her character to come across as socially concious which I was majorly behind, like masking, attending BLM protests etc. but to throw a hint of support for Israel with no further commentary while we have been witnessing an active genocide on their part absolutely did not sit right with me.

A super interesting premise, very engaging writing, ... and a slightly cliche ending. I mostly enjoyed this book but was slightly disappointed by the denouement. Would still like to see more from this author.

The author did an incredible job of getting us inside the head of our main character, Rachel. My favorite part of this story was the female friendships. I wish we got more time exploring her relationship with her children but alas that wouldn’t quite fit the theme of the story here. This novel was very introspective as we come along with Rachel as she explores herself and her sex life outside of marriage and motherhood…during a pandemic. Talk about stressful! I know people have big opinions on pandemic stories, but this fit well and didn’t bother me at all. This is definitely a quieter novel and I don’t really see why the AI thing got involved, but hey, it was fun.

I’m happy to say that I can add this novel to my pile of delicious “female rage” books. Amy Shearn did a nice job illustrating a woman’s experience in “mid-life.” There are so many layers to what is going on, too, which make it very immersive, entertaining and readable.

We pop into Rachel, the FMC’s life in the spring of 2020. She recently separated from her husband. She’s co-parenting with her ex-spouse and the pandemic is gearing up - in NYC, to boot.

Rachel had not felt emotional, physical or sexual fulfillment in her marriage in years and desire wakes up inside of her. As mentioned, she lives at the epicenter of a freaking global pandemic. I’m sure many of us can remember how bizarre things were in those early days with no idea how it spread & how the virus would impact individuals. We were all told to stay at home and NOT to mingle. But Rachel had an “itch to scratch” and she dove into the world of dating apps and started meeting up for sex. It was interesting how Rachel tried to balance exposure risk, health advice and mandates through all of this! While all this is going on, Rachel designs an AI chatbot with the goal of making it her perfect partner. She takes her experiences and “feeds the bot.” Like I said - many layers here!

For the summer of 2020, Rachel and her ex send their three kids to in-person overnight summer camp for 2 months. People did that in 2020, in NY? This is the one part I just had trouble buying in to. But during this summer, Rachel learns a lot about herself, takes power over her being, struggles and grows. She’s also able to hook up with lots of people, live a very adult life and immerse in her career and side projects as an AI-programmer. What ensues is pretty darn interesting to read and following Rachel’s journey is satisfying.

Ok here I go…. I am gonna say it…. If you like All Fours, you will probably enjoy this. If you thought All Fours was “too weird,” but liked the perimenopause angle, you’ll probably enjoy this!

Many thanks to Penguin, Amy Shearn and Netgalley for the advanced e-copy of this book & for the opportunity to provide my honest feedback.

I inhaled this novel about a recently divorced woman living through the early days of the pandemic who, informed by lots of app hookups, decides to design her perfect romantic partner as an AI chatbot. The writing is funny, sexy, tell-it-like-it-is, but also delivers well-timed moments of earnest tenderness. Highly recommend.

I was lucky enough to win an e-ARC of ANIMAL INSTINCT by Amy Shearn in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe and healthy 2025!

It’s interesting to see more books come out that integrate the pandemic. This one felt really specific to the pandemic in New York, capturing that odd, almost unreal atmosphere. It felt like a story that was so grounded in the pandemic that it couldn’t have happened at another time, which was really interesting. The book grabbed me right away, even though it started a bit slower and more normal. But the more I read the more unhinged and fascinating the story became. This is a great new addition to that particular sub genre of literary fiction.

In the world of AI why not make up the perfect person to date and interact with? Lord this book was interesting but also a bit funky I didnt mind it thought. I think our world is just leaning in on tech and AI so much that this book even though funky just made sense. I love this cover as well it reminds me of "Big Swiss"

In Brooklyn in the summer of 2020, amid lockdowns and protests, a recently divorced mother of three turns her adventures in online pandemic dating into a new project: building a chatbot who can combine the best of each person she meets. This book sparkles with intelligence and humor - a wonderfully feminist tale of middle-aged self-discovery for the modern era.In Brooklyn in the summer of 2020, amid lockdowns and protests, a recently divorced mother of three turns her adventures in online pandemic dating into a new project: building a chatbot who can combine the best of each person she meets. This book sparkles with intelligence and humor - a wonderfully feminist tale of middle-aged self-discovery for the modern era.

This book was okay. I think it was a bit much at times, like main character- girl relax calm down. But overall it was a fun look at another type of POV living through the pandemic. It was raunchy and disturbing at times but the premise was interesting overall

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

What a wild ride this was! I really enjoyed Animal Instant. The writing style got a while to get used to. The only thing I have to complain about it is the pandemic setting. I usually don't read books with anything about that part of life, but muttered through for this one. Looking forward to reading more by this author!

Animal Instinct follows newly divorced Rachel as she navigates her newly single life during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the glow of sexual freedom, Rachel creates an AI chat bot as a companion, using her messages from various dating app conquests to make the perfect lover.

For a book about social isolation and the pandemic, this had a lot of characters in it. I felt like this book was let down by having a huge range of characters. I wish that there had been more to Rachel's relationships with the important people in her life, especially her sister, her children, and her friend Lulu. I kept being told that Rachel had these strong bonds, but nothing in the narrative actually proved that to me. Additionally, her relationship with Josh felt totally one dimensional, and I was missing some nuance there.

The thing that sets this book apart from all of the other books about complicated women having a lot of sex is the AI element. I also think this element of the book was not as fleshed out as I'd have hoped. Frankie was not really in the book until pretty far in, and I never found their relationship to be that believable. I also felt like the ending was pretty rushed.

Here are some words and phrases that come to mind after reading this novel: brilliant, emotionally astute, wise, humorous at just the right places, psychologically relevant, intelligent, wise, sexy, sensuous, courageous, and powerful. The author leads us into Rachel’s life and we follow willingly because she is so relatable, so real, so recently wounded from a boring, hurtful marriage. The pandemic becomes another character in this story about one woman’s journey to discovering what she wants and needs…and more than that… her journey to realizing that those needs and desires are important.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was a neat tale of self exploration and experience, and the weird and wonderful journey of being a woman who's both free, and chained down. I have a hard time with pandemic books, but this hit the aimlessness well, that weird floating feeling. Overall, fun!