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In this spoiler-free Unlikely Animals review, I cover all you need to know about this literary fiction book. I include my favorite book quotes from Unlikely Animals, frequently asked questions, a brief synopsis, book club discussion questions, similar books, and more!
Content warnings: Terminal illness, grief, cancer, death of a parent, substance use disorder, dementia, child death mentioned, infidelity mentioned, suicide attempt mentioned
Unlikely Animals Book Review / Summary
- ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Book Riot • Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
Unlikely Animals is a unique, heartwarming story about a girl named Emma who returns to her small-town home in New Hampshire after dropping out of medical school.
Her childhood home is dealing with a very real opioid crisis. And her father, Clive, is dying of brain cancer.
While that’s reason enough for many to come home, Emma’s return is much more complicated.
The Charm
Growing up, she was known in her town as a healer because of what her father affectionately named “the Charm.”
It didn’t take long for people to realize she had a gift—a touch of magic—and the Charm garnered a lot of attention throughout her life. But her gift fizzles out when she needs it most: for her brother’s drug addiction and now her father’s illness.
When she returns from city life, burned out and aimless, there are many tensions in her family that unravel and play out in surprising ways.
Clive’s Eccentric Life
Caring for her father—who’s hallucinating small animals and forgetting big and small details of his life—turns out to be a complicated mess.
Not only is Clive hallucinating animals but he has visions of the ghost of long-dead naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes, known as the “Doctor Doolittle” of his time.
Well, if this all sounds a little strange and a little paranormal (perfect for a fall book club pick!), buckle up, because there’s another layer that makes this story so interesting and delightful . . .
The novel is told in omniscient point of view, narrated by the dead in the local Maple Street Cemetery. And spoiler alert, I loved it.
The Perfect Literary Fiction
There’s much more to this story, including a childhood best friend who goes missing who Clive is hell-bent on finding. There’s a bit of romance, quirky school kid characters, and some seriously hilarious moments.
But at its core, this tragicomic book is about imperfect relationships, finding your place in the world, letting go of expectations, forgiveness, and what it looks like to embrace the strange and wonderful and sometimes hurtful parts of being human.
As Clive would put it, “a poet loves anything that better illuminates the daily horror of being alive.”
My Thoughts: Unlikely Animals Review
I adored Unlikely Animals. Absolutely adored it. This may be one of my new favorite books, and I have to apologize now for the disorganized gushing!
Clive Sterling
Zany Clive Sterling is one of the most endearing, interesting, well-drawn characters I’ve read in a long time. Perhaps this is the best way to describe him pre-brain tumor:
“He’d always been more eccentric than other dads, not the kind of dad who putters around the house fixing things. Instead, he was riding his motorcycle, practicing with his metal band, drinking too much, and reciting poetry when no one was asking for poetry.”
Emma and her family are so real, and I know I will always care about them and think of them often.
Witty Humor
This book is so very funny. I don’t know if it’s just my humor, but the dry dialogue, descriptions, POV—it was all so smart and funny, with a healthy dose of wit and sarcasm. I mean, even with the heavy plot of a parent dying of brain cancer in a small town overrun with a very real opioid epidemic—and many other downright depressing things—there’s a lightness that shines through. We don’t stay in the dark for very long.
Fractured Relationships
Annie Hartnett so perfectly captures that fractured relationship between childhood best friends who have grown apart but deeply care about each other. Here’s a glimpse:
People talk a lot about first loves, or the love of your life, but people don’t say as much about the friend of your life. . . . No one ever stops loving their high school best friend, no matter how we lose them. Some of us at Maple Street had lost our childhood best friends to world wars, to polio, to childbirth, to other violent ends, or just to plain old boring time and separation, but we’d all taken a piece of that love to the grave. That first love. It had shaped us all. . . . Someone you had failed to always be there for, like you’d sworn you would, sworn best friends forever and ever, two halves of the same heart, unable to survive without the other. Someone who you hadn’t been able to help, in the end. There was no name for that mixture of grief and guilt and shame.
—Annie HarTnett, Unlikely Animals
The Ghosts of Maple Street Cemetery
The Greek chorus of the buried folks at Maple Street Cemetery was, in my opinion, the best part of Unlikely Animals. They cheered on the characters from afar, but they also appreciated those unseen, smaller moments that make up a life.
The ghosts on Maple Street had rules to abide by. They couldn’t meddle in the affairs of the living:
The first rule is, of course, No Meddling, and if you meddle too much your spirit can explode. A gone-in-a-flash type of thing. A bright light, a puff of smoke, a slight lingering stench. The second rule explains the Importance of Caring for the People of Everton. If you stop caring about the events of the living, you’re in direct violation of the rules of our cemetery, and your soul shrivels up before it disappears, like a browning, withering houseplant. . . . We try our best not to meddle. Some of our rules are silly, added over the years, rules like No Lawn Games and No Evil-Doing and No Unnecessary Singing, but we take those first two rules as seriously as we can.
—Annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals
The Historical Retellings of Naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes
Another part of the Unlikely Animals summary that makes this book so charming is the selected excerpts and photographs of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes (b. 1868–d. 1925).
He was known as the “real-life Doctor Doolittle of New Hampshire,” and his wife Louise and all of their eccentric stories of caring for wild animals.
I strongly recommend reading the author’s note at the end of book, which details how this story came to be. I have such immense respect for Annie Hartnett’s process!
Clive becomes enamored with his ghost friend and begins to take on some of his earthly habits, like caring for Rasputin the fox and Moses the dog.
My Unlikely Animals review, at its heart, is that this is such a tender, enchanting story, and I have to say Annie Hartnett’s wild talent has the ability to make you fall in love with this small town and its ordinary miracles.
Favorite Quotes from Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Not knowing what happens next and the fear associated with the not-knowing, that uncertainty and anticipations is what makes us human.
—Annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals
Anticipatory grief, it’s called, when you’re sad about something that hasn’t happened yet. Oh man, we thought at Maple Street, how we missed the excruciating pain of being alive.
—Annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals
That’s why we like living with animals so much; they exhibit their joy so outwardly, remind us how to be better alive.
—annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals
Frequently Asked Questions about Unlikely Animals
What is the book Unlikely Animals about?
Unlikely Animals is about a natural-born healer named Emma who finds herself back at home in her small town as her father is dying of a brain tumor. It sounds very heavy, but there are so many light moments.
Her father hallucinates small animals, speaks to the ghost of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes, and loses his memory—and even in his unstable state, he’s obsessed with finding Emma’s childhood friend Crystal who went missing.
Who narrates Unlikely Animals?
Unlikely Animals is narrated by Mark Bramhall, and the writings by Ernest Harold Baynes are read by Kirby Heyborne. Mark Bramhall does an incredible job; he sounds like a grandfather reading you a cozy story by the fire!
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What is the setting of Unlikely Animals?
Unlikely Animals takes place in small-town Everton, New Hampshire. Annie Hartnett wrote the setting of Unlikely Animals based on Newport, New Hampshire, after researching about an enormous yellow mansion there.
Just as there’s an opioid crisis in the small town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, the opioid epidemic casts a shadow over the town in Unlikely Animals, too.
Is Unlikely Animals based on a real story?
This is a novel, and it’s not based on a true story, but it is historical fiction. Parts of the book are inspired by real life. Much of the gossip about Ernest Harold Baynes in the book came from local historians.
At the end of Unlikely Animals, Annie Hartnett includes a detailed note on how this quirky story came to be. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious about the historical elements.
What is the genre of Unlikely Animals?
Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic literary historical fiction novel with a little magical realism and mystery thrown in! Quite the genre-bendy story!
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Book Club Discussion Questions for Unlikely Animals
- Ice breaker question: If you could befriend any wild animal, what would it be, and why?
- Which quirky character was your favorite? Why?
- Why do you think Emma lost the Charm? Do you think she ever lost it in the first place?
- How did the backdrop of the opioid crisis affect your reading of Unlikely Animals?
- What is the significance of the Charm in the story?
- How does Emma change and grow throughout the course of the novel?
- Much of the book is about fractured, imperfect relationships and how we reconnect and nurture them anyway. What relationships were your favorite?
- How does anticipatory grief affect the actions and attitudes of the characters?
- What did you think of Crystal and what happened to her?
- What did you think of the ghosts of Maple Street Cemetery? How did their POV color your reading experience?
Other Book by Annie Hartnett
Similar Books to Unlikely Animals
These books explore similar themes or are reminiscent of Unlikely Animals in some way:
- No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
- Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
- This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (review here!)
- Long Bright River by Liz Moore
- Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Buy the Book: Unlikely Animals Review
I hope you enjoy my Unlikely Animals review! I recommend Unlikely Animals for fans of Gail Honeyman, Fredrik Backman, and Emma Straub.
If magical quirkiness is your thing and you like to see fractured, imperfect friendships and family relationships come together in a new way, this book is definitely for you.
If you like mordant humor, animals, and small-town mystery stories, Unlikely Animals is for you. I really think this book is perfect for fall because of its ghostly influences!
Unlikely Animals is the perfect blend of sweet, sad, funny, and heartwarming. I can’t wait to read Annie Hartnett’s next book!
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