Unlikely Animals

Reviews

“A quirky, poignant novel about family, community and love for our animal friends.”—The Washington Post

“This is a big novel doing big things. It bears some similarity to Hartnett’s much- loved first novel, Rabbit Cake. . . . But Unlikely Animals is a broader, brassier, and even more fiercely tender story. In this, her second novel, Hartnett lands an astonishing leap as a storyteller.”—The Rumpus

“Wistfully charming . . . This unapologetically genre-bending tribute to life and death, and the beautiful weirdness found in both, has potential to spark exceptional book club discussions.”—Shelf Awareness

“A beguiling, big-hearted story about life and death and what really matters in the end. . . . There is no way you will not love this instant classic.”—Bookreporter

“Unlikely Animals possesses such tenderness and empathy for a world that wears us down and ruins us, a world that sometimes offers a glimmer of hope, and Hartnett knows how to turn up the brilliance of that light and wield it to do magical things.”—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here and The Family Fang

“I devoured Annie Hartnett’s Unlikely Animals. She’s created a beautiful menagerie set inside a troubled household and their small New Hampshire town; a delightful mess of tenderness, grief, and despair, but most important, hope.”—Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth

“A wondrous and wonderful story filled with unforgettable characters, both living and dead. An instant classic that will make you question reality even as you embrace a town with a unique relationship to nature and miracles.” —Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of the Southern Reach trilogy

“A riotous, joyful, hilarious romp with the wild and the tamed, the living and the dead, Unlikely Animals is both a love letter to John Irving and a literary accomplishment in its own right . . . Unlikely Animals is a triumph.”—Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award

“Unlikely Animals is a large-hearted story populated by an original and amiable cast of characters—human, animal, spirit—about living, dying, and all the messiness in between.”—Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin

“Annie Hartnett’s second novel, Unlikely Animals, is striking and richly imagined, with a voice that is wholly its own. . . . The magic of Hartnett’s novel stems from the balance of these weighty topics with the story’s intrinsic playfulness.”—BookPage (starred review)
 
“Hartnett masterfully balances a story of deep loss with the perfect amount of hilarity and tenderness.”—Booklist (starred review)

“An absurdist, laugh-out-loud family drama about intergenerational healing.”—Kirkus Reviews Expand reviews