A review by franklyreads
The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Someone recommended this book on one of the panels at Novacon this year (I can't remember which panel), so I picked it up when I was looking for what to spend my next credit on.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. I appreciate the overall feel of the story, the way we get a journey from understanding a little to understanding a lot
and then having it all broken down again at the end, once she's already integrated
. But the execution didn't really gel with me.

My main gripe is with the main character. I did find her likeable in places, and at the very least sympathetic, especially towards the end. She's a bit of a mess, though. I think that was intentional, to highlight the animals being 'cleaner', in a sense. When she's not getting drunk, she's sleeping her way across Australia with a bit of an obsession with mentioning genitals, sometimes in the most inappropriate situations. When she randomly started reminiscing about her ex-husband's dick halfway through a scene, I had to pause to do a double-take.

Speaking of which, this isn't a book I'd recommend listening to in audio, at least not without headphones. The narration is fine, but there's Jean's sex life springing out at you from the left and animals screaming F bombs from the right. Overhearers will be confused and perhaps perturbed.

On another note, even when Jean could theoretically understand the animals quite well, I couldn't. Their words never made that much more sense, although they did make some. It was confusing, but given the theme of the book and everything that happens, I'd say it's intentional confusion. It just makes pretty wild listening. I think as a side-effect, though, the extent to which people went crazy didn't feel that realistic. Even the initial setting felt a little... isolated, somehow. And I know it's Australia, so lots of it is very isolated, but some of the people who popped up at the start of zoo flu seemed to do so completely out of the blue. Perhaps that's just a consequence of me listening rather than reading. 

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