Amelia works for the family funeral business, preparing the bodies with make up, but when her own mother dies, she feels the need to escape and runs away to stay with her biological father, Jack. There was lots of potential here for a good story with the family dynamics and I liked the way the author brought the biological dad and step dad, Vincent, together at the end.

It's clear from the outset that Amelia uses sex as an escape outlet and has no desire for an emotional connection with the men she sleeps with. I was intrigued by the BDSM premise, but it wasn't what I expected. When Amelia agrees to visit a kink club, she ends up on the stage being whipped for an audience. I cringed as I read how she painted a man with her menstrual blood- eugh!

I liked the premise, I just wanted it to have more emotional depth.

Thanks indeed to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Genius - funny, but also angry and righteous, this felt like a really new voice. I loved the pace, the writing, and the pages zipped by before I had realised it.

Ella Baxter’s debut novel, New Animal, is a wise, witty exploration of grief, specifically, but more broadly, all incarnations of pain: where loss and sorrow resides in the body, and how they can best be processed. It’s incredibly funny. It’s also profound, packed with insights reminiscent of Iris Murdoch’s more philosophical work, about the human condition and how frequently it can really stink.

She’s developed a voice that’s unique and insightful, from a likeable character who’s possibly neurodivergent - this isn’t explored, but her hatred of talking and being touched made me wonder: she certainly thinks and interacts very differently from most of us. She’s so filled with pain she spends much of the book chasing a still greater, more powerful sensation to obliterate it - sex, often, or as the novel progresses, BDSM.

For me, the BDSM passages were the least successful. I was relieved when she stopped being gagged and bound and whipped and returned to more everyday pain. I suspect the scenes were introduced to explore the relation between control, addiction and power (this it successfully accomplishes, in a slightly clunky way): but also to shift copies. I must admit, I might not have picked the book up had I not seen it contained BDSM themes, so I’d be grossly hypocritical to complain of her tactics. But for me the kink scenes didn’t feel authentic. Can there really be clubhouses where strangers play together, meeting for the first time in themed rooms, organised by volunteers, with a hasty instruction not to use certain tactics or implements, without any financial incentive? Maybe that’s how it works in Tasmania, but in the UK you’d be charging a fortune for that kind of encounter, and the legalities would be intolerably complex. It felt like a fantasy from an erotic novel. It’s a shame, because the rest of the book, the family relationships, the overwhelming sadness, the meditations on motherhood, were beautifully explored, rounded, poignant and memorable.
And I enjoyed it so hugely I plan to buy the paperback as soon as possible so I can underline sentences, argue with it in the margins, and highlight my favourite passages to absorb and consider at my leisure. Ella Baxter can really, properly write. My only serious criticism is that it was too short. More soon please.

First of all, thank you to Pan Macmillan for the copy!
New Animal tells the painful and human story of Amelia Aurelia's experience with grief. Moreover, the book also discusses quite a lot of kink and funerals/dead bodies.
I really enjoyed the nuanced discussion around Amelia's work at the funeral home. However, what I did not enjoy was how Amelia dealt with kink, Sometimes she felt awfully disrespectful of people around her. But, maybe the whole kink aspect of the story was too much for me, who knows
Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to readers who are looking for a quick and very different read and who also do not shy away from a bit of gore and hard topics.
Furthermore, I would recommend this book to fans of Luster!

New Animal is a novel about a woman who works in a funeral parlour trying to deal with her own grief. Amelia does make-up for the dead in her family's funeral parlour, but a sudden loss in the family causes her to run away to her father's home in Tasmania, missing the funeral. From there, she finds herself trying out the local BDSM scene in the hope of finding something to help with the grief and pain.

This is a short book that takes a look at sex and death and how people try and deal with grief, and a lot of the scenes in the book revolve around dead bodies and kinky sex, so there's definitely going to be people who aren't a fan of that. I didn't mind the content, but I felt it needed more exploration, and a lot of the characters weren't very developed. It was fine to read, but I just wasn't that engaged with it sadly, though I imagine other people might find it more moving and engaging.

In Ellie Baxter's debut novel New Animal Ameila is a cadaver make up artist in the family funeral parlour in Australia . Amelia loves her job but spends too much of her spare time having fairly soulless sexual encounters with random men she finds online. When a loved one dies Amelia is distraught,cannot handle the thought of the funeral and flees to Tasmania to stay with her estranged Dad .Unable to curb her online hook up habit Amelia finds herself involved in the local BDSM scene where she hopes to find some answers about herself.

This is a quirky book, the characters and dialogue reminded me very much of Mike Leigh's movies with slightly strange people and bizarre situations that combined for serious belly laughs. It's not a book for the squeamish, I'm not particularly but cringed at a couple of Amelia's escapades .
Ella Baxter is a real talent,from a fairly pedestrian beginning, not much happens at all for a few pages the book then seemed to be accelerating into an attempt to shock the reader as much as possible..then there's a truly amazing ending that is almost sheer poetry .

I think this book will sharply divide opinion, it's definitely odd and some will hate it given the nature of some of the scenes, which are very near the knuckle in a number of ways. Others will think it's a work of genius. I wouldn't go quite that far but it is a very impressive piece of work , To switch from some of the quite brutal and gross scenes before it to something as beautiful and moving as the ending and make it work is quite an achievement.

More of a 3.5 rounded up.
I loved the beginning and end of the book. I was immediately interested in the story and felt like it was unique and quirky without being too artificial. The main character seemed relatable and real. However the middle section sort of turned her into a caricature and introduced shallow and flat side characters that added very little to the story.

This is a tender witty modern look at death grieving and how it affects us all in different ways .The narrator works in a family run funeral parlour in Australia and thinks she knows everything there is to know about death and grieving until tragically her own mother dies suddenly .
The raw visceral ugliness of grief immediately after the death of her mother is described on minute Oh so accurate detail as is the desire to escape this awful feeling in any way possible as if by mortifying her own flesh she can remove the unbearable feelings
I loved the modern Australian setting just different enough from my own uk life for the differences to be noticeable snd this important
The scenes set in the adult Sand M club wander between horrific and hilarious,I wanted to gather this girl up and take her away from hurting herself so badly
The description of a mother enduring a still birth had me in floods of tears and provides the cathartic ending that the novel needed
I real an early copy of the book ok NetGalley Uk it is published 17th February 2022

'New Animal' is a journey through and exploration of grief in a young woman. An interesting debut novel from Ella Baxter, 'New Animal' packs some punches. Baxter explores how trauma from grief manifests itself.

This book will have you laughing and reflecting on your own inner thoughts at the same time.

I personally felt like the last chapter was incredible and the prose was so beautifully thought out and written.

A promising debut - I am keen to see what Ella Baxter publishes next.

New Animal by Ella Baxter has a promising premise about a young woman attempting to distract herself from grief but I felt like it was underdeveloped.

Wow. Not even sure where to begin with this one.
A perfect, honest and hard hitting account of grief, losing a mother and how its (not) handled.
This weirdly has the perfect mix of grief and sex which stunned me but it absolutely worked.
Some shocking scenes- not for the faint hearted.
Raw, unique, clever.
And its a debut. OHMYGOODNESS.