When Mystical Creatures Attack!

Why the full star rating? Because it smacks of youth and all the clever, witty things the teens write echo what my own teenager children say and think. Very funny. Here is one excerpt that made me laugh childishly. "You wouldn't have had to bring in all your childhood books from your family's basement, and you wouldn't have been so upset when someone drew boobs and a penis on Black Beauty. I know you think it was me, because of those notes I wrote you, but it wasn't."

Ms. Freedman's class writes essays and we, the readers, develop and intimacy with the characters through their writings. The stories really are a lot of fun. I imagine a good time was had by the author writing this, because as I chuckled throughout I can see the author giving life to these characters, living with them, making them flesh. It is true that the reader will feel close to the characters and I honestly felt a bit 'teen-aged' myself again with the reading. It is uniquely stylish, fun, moving, full of meaning and I am certainly handing it over to my teens to read too. Sometimes authors can't capture teens right, as if they've forgotten all the vulnerabilities and the instinctual gift they have for cutting right to the chase. Often in literature teens come off as cookie cutter characters without any intelligence, but not so here.
Read it, you won't be sorry. So much fun!

I don't give many full star ratings, but in this case I didn't hesitate. The book was adorable and a little bit magical.

Founds has an ability to tap into the full human experience - I laughed and I cried and I wanted more. She does this while the book operates via a non-conventional narrative structure.

The reader feels impossibly close to the characters - and Founds, for a brief time, made me feel like I was a high school student again (it was a nice trip to nostalgia, but I am glad it is over)

Good read some parts are laugh out loud funny

Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This book starts off with two questions and the responses to those questions set the tone of the book: Random. Unique. Magical. Mystical. Silly. Insightful. This story is told through emails, essays, journal entries, creative writing shorts and even recipes and while the method is random and eclectic, and at times a little confusing, it gives you a well rounded, in depth look into the lives of three people brought together because of a high school english class.
While there are laugh out loud, some what inappropriate, moments peppered throughout the book, there are also poignant ones that had me contemplating how one moment in time can affect a persons life in the long haul.
While the way this book is set up isn’t the norm, it is something that everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime.

The book opens with essays from Ms. Laura Freedman’s high school English class. They’ve been asked to writes essays about how mystical creatures resolve the greatest sociopolitical problems of our time. And the responses – random, occasionally vague, unique, mysterious, eccentric, magical – set the tone for the rest of the book.

The lives of the main cast of characters – Janice, Cody, Ms. Freedman – are revealed through class essays, journal prompts, letters, emails, therapeutic journal exercises, an advice column, television transcripts and a Methodist women’s fundraising cookbook.

It’s wholly original and utterly delightful. It has its laugh-out-loud moments and its serious ones; some random ramblings and some crazy teenage hormones. It’s deep and philosophical, profound, strangely moving, and irreverent all at once. Overall, it’s absolutely brilliant!

Highly, highly recommended!

In the spirit of full disclosure: This review is basically going to be made up of several chunks of the contents of an email I sent to Kathleen Founds after I finished the book. (Also: She's really super nice, and if she writes more books, I will buy every single one of them.)

Okay. So! When I requested When Mystical Creatures Attack! from netgalley.com it was a case of judging a book by its cover, which, not gonna lie, I do a lot. But, seriously, anybody who can look at a book cover with a cartoon giant squid with its tentacles wrapped around a cartoon unicorn and not desperately want to find out what it's about is no friend of mine. Anyway, my interest grew when I read the information about it and found it was a novel-in-stories, with epistolary leanings. I'm a really big fan of that sort of format, and it's something I've wanted to do myself for some time, so I love seeing examples of it, especially ones that I think work.

One of the things I like about novels-in-stories is how easy it is to find a place to stop. ...Well. NOT THIS ONE. I started WMCA! before bed and didn't stop until the end. And at the end, I kept holding my Kindle and looking at the glowing screen for a while. I wasn't sure how I felt, other than 'a little overwhelmed.' I had a million thoughts, and it was really hard to put them into a sensible order. Here's another 'not gonna lie' moment: I happened to have therapy the next afternoon, and it was still so much on my mind, that it's what I spent almost my whole hour talking about. (When she wrote back to me, she said she wished she could put that last sentence on the back of the book as a blurb. I'd totally blurb for her.)

Clearly, I liked this book, and it wasn't only because of the format. I liked it because I felt like I knew the characters--I felt that I was (am, or have been) a lot of those people. I liked that there were parts that made me sad, and there were parts that made me angry, and there were parts where I felt less alone, and there were parts that made me laugh. Certain stories felt so real, while others felt absolutely surreal. It felt wild and unpredictable, like life, but also sometimes what happened was exactly what I expected, also like life. One of the main characters--probably the one that I would call THE main character, if I were forced to say--is bipolar, and the whole book seems to represent the highs and lows that come with that particular disorder. It sort of felt more like experiencing a book than reading one.

The novel follows a high school teacher suffering a nervous breakdown and two of her most interesting students through essays, emails, therapeutic journaling attempts, and even recipes from a church cookbook.

I have found one of my new favorite authors and books. This is the kind of writing I hope to be able to accomplish one day, and it has left me in such a state of bittersweet shock and awe that my writing has gone on strike. Founds is my newfound inspiration. Founds injects wit and humor into even the darkest concepts, carrying you over poetic descriptions of bad parenting, teen pregnancy, and a highly ludicrous "New Age" asylum. I was laughing and crying by the first page and didn't stop the entire way through.

The characters and situations are all wrapped in an identifiable, all-too-real cloak but the writing is the "mystical" part. Founds takes the ordinary day-to-day life and suffering of ordinary people and makes it...well, extraordinary. Clearly, there are no words for how perfect this book is. Just go read it.

This is a really unique story. It's told through English class assignments (hence the title), snippets from Psych Ward handouts, emails, letters, journal entries--you get the idea. It took me two tries to get into this book. The first time I had no framework for who or what I was reading about. The second time, it was easier to pick out the teacher (Laura Freedman) and a few students who become major characters. The teacher is basically institutionalized and several of her students are floundering. This is really a sad story...a story I was emotionally unprepared for. Founds sketches out these people and then, it seemed to me, throws them into such sadness and despair. Of course, in the end, some things turn out pretty well, but some...turned out very sadly indeed. An excellent read, especially if you appreciate the unconventional.

I was faked out by the cartoonist creature on the cover. I thought When Mystical Creatures Attack was a tween novel. What it is is a often funny, always deadly serious romp through mental illness, social injustice, throw-away lives, yearning for God and some of the deepest, oldest questions. Originally written as a series of short pieces, the whole book holds together well. The writing is very "writerly" and very talented. You will learn that a lot can be revealed through a high school English assignment or a church's collection of recipes. A young adult might be interested in this novel but I would only give it to someone with a very strong hold on life because the case for despair is very convincingly presented. The final page expresses hope but getting there is a uphill battle.

“Plenty of teachers have thrown a terrarium out a window and shouted, ‘You’re driving me crazy!’ But you’re the first who actually followed through.”

First off I have to say that this book wasn’t at all what I first expected. I expected a witty commentary about how a school teacher in the midst of a midlife crisis is handling school systems, parents, and disrespectful students. What I got instead was a book full of life lessons learned through experience and through the eyes of others.

The three main characters are Laurel Freedman- the teacher- and two of her students, Janice and Cody. Laurel’s mother had mental problems of her own, and her father wasn’t exactly “Father of the Year” material, but she was a young teacher determined she would change the world through her students. BUT, she suffers from a mental disorder (bipolar?) which eventually leads her to a mental breakdown- which is really where the novel begins (our story here isn’t linear).

Janice was abandoned by her mother as a child, and left to live with her aunt when her father remarries. Her character is a hurting teenage girl with a problem “acting out” for attention.

Cody is the dreamer/geek of the group. His short stories are my favorite featured in the novel and will most likely get the most laughs.

There are times when the point of view switches to second person, which really just confuses the story and made me want to skim over those parts. The rest of the story is first person from one character to another through letters, e-mails, cookbook recipes, and short stories- which really worked. I don’t know why there were sudden switches to second person that just blew off the flow of the story.

Overall, I would recommend When Mystical Creatures Attack to anyone who enjoys novels with mixed media (email, letters, etc…) and that’s hits serious topics but still a bit on the silly side.

This is a novel that is told in stories. The three main characters are: Laurel Freedman, the schoolteacher, Janice and Cody two of her students. Ms. freedman was determined to change the world through her students. The teacher is institutionalized and her students are floundering.

It is a novel that made me laugh and also cry. It is a novel told through English class assignments, emails, essays, journal entries and Psych Ward emails, handouts, letters, etc. it makes for a very unique story. Most of the time, I found it fascinating though at times a little confusing. It is a fun book. I cannot recommend it enough.

I love the novel-in-stories format of this book? collection? perfect piece of art? Whatever you want to call it, it is brilliant in its execution. The perfect recipe of real and surreal, high and low, grace and cruelty used to show, not tell, what its like to experience a life with mental illness. Add vivid, memorable characters struggling against their destined fates. Top it off with some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful prose I have read in a long time and you have a taste of what it is like to read WMCA.

I laughed. I cried. I read it again. And then I ordered copies for my friends. It is that good, y'all.

This review refers to the NetGalley edition.

This is the kind of book that I would hand to a friend and say, "You should read this." They would ask "What's it about?" and as I tried to think of a way to explain it, I would give up, shrug, and say "Just read it."

I read it over the course of just a couple hours, sucked in from page 1 at the sheer originality and bizareness of it. The first section is a collection of writing responses that a group of high school English students wrote as an assignment for the class taught by one of the three main protagonists, in which she asked them to write a story in which their "favorite mystical creature solves the greatest sociopolitical problem of our time." My favorite: "How The Succubus Got Me Laid."

I love this author's sense of humor and I've never read a book written quite in this way before. I'm putting her on my Top 10 List of People I Would Like To Have At A Dinner Party. If you enjoy Augusten Burroughs, I think you will adore this book, as Founds' creation of a mental institution that runs on capitalist principles for patients who declare themselves "mentally bankrupt" upon checking in is reminiscent of Running With Scissors and at the same time the underlying issues of parental abandonment, suicide, abortion, drug abuse, etc., are presented and dealt with in a very real, poignant, and emotional way - which reminded me of Dry. The author managed to create three separate, distinct, and authentic voices for Janice, Laura, and Cody while still maintaining a coherent narrative that presents itself to the reader in various forms.

But I digress. *shrug*

Just read it.

Despite its title, this book is set in contemporary Texas when Ms. Freedman, a high school teacher, suffers a mental breakdown after receiving her students' essays about mystical creatures solving the world's problems. (She was already on the verge.) The novel is told in epistolary form, through letters, emails, essays, and journals, and we learn a lot about Ms. Freedman and two of her students. The book is a strong mixture of very funny moments told amidst some sad circumstances. Beautifully written and conceived, this is an inventive and strong novel.

Right when I finished this book, I thought it was a four-star read. In the hours since, I have realized that I feel more strongly for the characters than I realized, in a way that can only mean a full five-star rating.

When Mystical Creatures Attack is a highly clever, creative, engaging work about the complexities of living-- mental illness, ideals, and the class system combine in an at-times-hilarious, at-times-emotional read. The ambiguous endings combined with the unreliability of narrators makes this a somewhat difficult book to parse, despite the simple, easygoing language in which it is written. I'll be thinking about it for days.