Form had my attention right from the start and I was captivated. The righting was so very good and I enjoyed every moment reading this.

I did not finish. It just started off too sexual for me to want to continue. There were also a lot of typos which made reading difficult.

In a quaint little town, miniature model maker Dorn lives a quiet life. He has created miniature models for each of the businesses in town, keeps to himself since his girlfriend left him, visits his cantankerous and not particularly affectionate father occasionally, feels somewhat bemused by his brash, overly confident and greedy brother, and pines after teacher and former athlete Ravenna.

He is very surprised one day to discover that there is a program ("Wild Home Project") for people to live with a wild animal when he discovers a wolf living with an acquaintance. It sounds like a frankly ridiculous and dangerous idea and pretty soon Dorn sees more people with their wild animal companions.

Does this go well? Of course not. At the same time, we see Dorn's too placid daily life making models on commission, and interacting minimally with others, all while constantly yearning after Ravenna. At the same time, both not much and some surprising things happen in the town, culminating in a conflagration.

I don't think I'm part of the audience for this book. It never really captured my imagination, and I kept wondering what I was supposed to glean from the story, other than 1) it's really stupid trying to live in proximity to a wild creature, and 2) deal with your fears to move your life forward.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Book*hug Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This book read exactly like watching a Wes Anderson movie. Quirky characters in a strange and humble setting doing odd jobs with weird shenanigans happening around them. I love a Wes Anderson movie, but for me, this book felt incredibly disingenuous and completely lacking in any sort of character depth. I almost DNFed 40% in but pushed through in hopes I would at least find it charming, but I regret to say that as soon as I submit this review, I will likely never think about this story ever again. I give it two stars for concept, but can't give it any more for execution

Dorn lives in a small tourist village where he creates miniature scale models for local shops. And the rest of the plot description will make this sound like something it's not. The Animals is a realist work embedded with the hallmarks of a fairy-tale. It is wholly unique, challenging and another fantastic entry into the canon of Cary Fagan.

Fagan is slow to begin this one, and starts off with Dorn, our main character, making a model for the sex shop. Dorn is someone who is fine to depict anything in his models, but is almost incapable of holding a true conversation with someone.

By the title and the description, I expected the animals to take more of a center-stage plot, but they came off as a secondary component of the novel. I thought Fagan might make more of a commentary on the animals people were choosing, which he started to do once or twice, but then quickly moved away from. And because Dorn is not an owner himself, we don't even see how our main character might interact with a wild animal. Though I suppose one could make an argument his "animal" is Ravenna. Instead, we focus more on Dorn as a person: his relationship with his brother, his father, schoolteacher Ravenna, and how he feels about his work.

In all, this has the feel of many translated-from-the-Japanese magical realism books I've read this year: Where the Wild Ladies Are; The Emissary; There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job. Once you get 20% in or so, it reads quickly, and I read the whole book in a single sitting. If you enjoyed some of the other titles listed here, you will like the tone and vibe of this book!

A quirky little book about a solitary miniaturist named Dorn who lives in a quaint, small town where every business in town has one of his miniature dioramas. Dorn's older brother is a rich jerk, his father is a crank, and his best pretends not to know he's in love with her. Things start to shift when a new government program encourages people to adopt wild wild animals. With wolves, muskrats, and bears in their midst, lives get exposed and unsettled including Dorn's. This is a slim volume that reads like a fairy tale. It's kind of weird and captivating too. Thanks to Book*hug Press and Netgalley for an eARC.

𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬- 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦.

Written in the tale, “The longer you stand here, investing your time, the harder it is to leave,” is an interesting statement, one that makes me imagine people as ancient, rooted trees. Change is hard, and it’s a natural thing, getting trapped in our ways. Worse, when you live in a village or town where you are well known, your character is constantly reinforced, not allowing much room for one’s evolution. We all have our roles, too, within the family structure and it doesn’t always benefit each individual. Dorn knows this reality all too well.

Dorn builds miniature scale models, his works are displayed in windows of businesses throughout his village, they are commissions he relies upon. A letter lands under his door requesting a unique commission, but it isn’t signed. It makes him uncomfortable, but the money is good. It isn’t the most peculiar event that has come his way. The “Wild Home Project” occupies the locals, urging villagers to “Bring the Wild Home”, allowing wild creatures into their residence. Dorn is perplexed, surely he loves animals, a lonely man on his own, but he cannot fathom what would drive someone to do such a thing. Wildlife that is untamed, savage at times, far too big to live alongside human beings. Disturbing incidents start to occur and the animals aren’t the only ones acting beastly. Dorn’s vile brother Vin is more than happy to remind him of what a weak, cowardly failure he is. Their aging, emotionally distant father is wrapped up in his own crazy plans, his heart much younger than his old body. It seems the people in his world have lost their marbles. Will the crazy antics light a fire in his own insecure soul and nudge him to confess his love for school teacher Raveena. Raveena is a strange bird herself, tall and charmingly disheveled. Horla, an elusive, elderly author of some notoriety, has recently published a book for children about a blinking eye. Dorn admires her work, but like her other fans, can’t explain why.

Raveena gets really angry, Dorn finds a body and he starts seeing more of a police officer, who was once a classmate, but the real crime is the things he didn’t know about the object of his affection. Why is Vin always coming out on top? Why is his own life so small and why do people act infinitely stupid? Will he ever have a chance with Raveena and is that a baby in the mouth of a fox? Sometimes a person’s world must collapse to welcome change.

This was a surprisingly fun story. There is no such thing as quiet villages and towns. There are always tensions simmering, unrequited loves, strained relationships and someone who needs to be shaken out of their dusty existence. It just doesn’t always take wolves or bears to chase you into action. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: October 4, 2022 Available Now

Book*hug Press

Absolutely brilliant read. Quirky and imaginative but not cloying. Some very strange going’s on in Dorn’s village. The wildlife program was disturbingly funny and sad at the same time.

The Animals by Cary Fagan is a highly recommended literary modern fable.

Dorn lives in a curious tourist village and makes miniature scale models which are displayed in the local shops. He pines for schoolteacher Ravenna, dutifully visits his elderly father who treats him callously, and has a younger brother who treats him as an afterthought. His life is quiet, predictable, and unassuming. As he makes his way through his unobtrusive daily routine he notices neighbors participating in the government-sponsored "Wild Home Project" which has wild animals, like wolves, rats, minks, otters, and bear, move into the villagers homes.

The pages will fly by in this compact novel. The writing is excellent and the narrative resembles an allegorical fairy tale. The moral or lesson is conceivably along the lines of one must be their own advocate and make their own way through the world, and that wild animals are just that, wild and unpredictable, much like many people. Dorn is a sympathetic character and readers will support him as he goes through his days encountering various characters. The final denouement, or perhaps an alternate moral to the story, may be that life requires you to be brave, take chances, and embrace change.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Book*hug Press via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Edelweiss, Google Books, and Amazon.

A sort of fairy tale, an original and highly entertaining story about common people. People who find a way to improve their life and maybe find happyness.
I loved the style of writing and the character development. The plot made me laugh but there were also some more poignant moments.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

THE ANIMALS is quiet, reserved literature with adornment stripped away to highlight its central theme: an examination of the principle of restraint. The novel itself, being short and focused, is the very picture of restraint while its narrative examines the pros and cons of different types: moral and ethical self-restraint in personal lives as well as in education and city government, including the application of rules and laws. Protagonist Dorn seems overly self-restrained in his manner and pursuits while friends and family seem less so, creating an intriguing contrast, e.g., Dorn's brother is a d%*k, morally and ethically nefarious, but he DOES seem happy and, of course, gets the girl (while nice guys, as we all know, never do). Readers will inevitably compare Dorn to his brother, wondering which lifestyle is better (author Cary Fagan gives no answer to that, only more examples to consider) and will also likely locate and examine examples in their own lives, asking what they should do differently now or should have done differently in the past. The entire novel is an interesting thought experiment and an exercise in self-analysis, which seems the mark of great literary fiction. For that, I commend Fagan: this is masterfully written and a fine novel.

Reading this book feels like watching a Wes Anderson film, in that it's a peculiar but charming setting filled with peculiar but charming characters who follow a peculiar but charming plot. I liked the balance of small and large scale plot arcs, where an equal amount of attention is given to the main character wanting to spend time with and profess his love to javelin-thrower-turned-school-teacher, and the fact that the village has welcomed a government programme to allow residents to bring wild animals into their home. The latter is a vehicle of chaos, but while the residents rush to adjust to the new way of life after what seems like generations of placidity and repetition, the smaller arcs of family drama, working life, and romantic love, still take space in the narration. Animals is a short book to easily read in one or two sittings, preferably with a hot chocolate or tea, and has the air of revisiting a childhood favourite story.

This is surprisingly good. Very good writing and a story that includes interesting characters and situations. On the surface, it may seem like a simple story, but there's a lot there if one cares to ready carefully. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

Some are born wild, some achieve wildness, and some have wildness thrust upon them.

Comparisons to Wes Anderson films have already -- rightly -- been made to Cary Fagan's wonderful upcoming novel, The Animals​ (Oct. 4, 2022). I've no doubt that the similarity is intentional; much like how any one of Anderson's films feel like dramedies-within-doll-houses, protagonist Dorn (himself a miniature model-maker) navigates through both an environment and cast of characters defined by a certain soft quirkiness. Every paragraph feels cast within a broad, bright light and, if you don't mind I put too fine a point on it, the setting often feels more like set design than natural milieu. It's a fun place to spend some time, in the way that a living history museum entertains voyeurs.

But where for me Anderson's stories falter, Fagan's novel succeeds. I think mainly of how Anderson's characters never seem to escape the veneer of artificiality, how (despite the indisputable quality of the films) there's a heavy hand of restraint throughout the entire experience. The Animals​' plot acknowledges a need for a certain wildness to be injected, and Fagan displays confidence in letting his hand off the leash, so to speak, by introducing literal wild animals into the homes of his villagers.

As a vehicle, the Wild Home Project, the government-sponsored program allowing residents of the unnamed village to foster a wide array of wildlife, introduces a necessary variable into lives of otherwise interminable placidity. Despite their inherent eccentricities (I'm talking a pair of maybe-sibling sex shop owners, an Olympic-level javelin thrower turned schoolteacher, a feeble octogenarian romantically entangled with his decades younger caretaker), the villagers comfortably situated inside a nonevent narrative -- perhaps it's this deep-set comfort that allowed them to make such ridiculous decisions as "loose a wolf into your living room." Certainly nobody seems to want to have wild animals traipsing their halls, and yet with this history of perpetual sunny days (and maybe a dash of everyone-else-is-doing-it), the Wild Home Project catches on quickly, to obvious disaster.

But it's not as though life completely halts whilst the minks run rampant: Dorn still has scale models to make, a woman to pine over, a schemer of a brother to endure. And midway through the novel we even spend time with a cantankerous novelist, which leads to the most perplexing chapter, a paraphrasing of this acclaimed novelist's first children's picture book. A week later I'm still pondering over the point of it, and while it screams allegory I can't quite seem to connect the dots. At the very least it operates as yet another example of how culturally removed this village is from the rest of the world; not only are the names fantastical (Koj, Glin, Torpe, Feenis), but these same villagers take time to enjoy some Yiss pudding, or Forgel beer. It's one step away from​ reading a translated conversation between two Sims characters.

I'd be remiss to ignore the craft put into this book. Cary Fagan threads the needle between the surreal and the outright ridiculous, all while maintaining a tone fit for fables. It's a slim book overall, but even so the story slides by with excellent pacing, and I'd finished The Animals well before I'd anticipated. And even with a concept like "beset these villagers with feral animals, and see what happens," not once did I pick up any authorial meanness toward his characters. Rather, remarkably, I found it surprisingly gentle, which made the denouement (and my finishing the book) an almost sad experience.

I would gladly visit this village again.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

'"But I have learned that sometimes there is evil and sometimes there is stupidity, and not infrequently the two are so close as to be impossible to tell apart."'

The Animals is a short and fascinating tale that highlights the complex relationship between humanity and wildlife. The book follows Dorn, a model maker from a small tourist village, a character who is rather restrained, possibly from his fear of what might happen if he chooses to let go. When his village adopts a new Wildlife Programme that allows the villagers to have wild animals - such as wolves, bears, and birds of prey - as pets, Dorn wonders how anyone could possibly want to join the scheme as he watches chaos consume those around him.

To me, this is a story about letting loose, and losing control. It's a tale in which everyone wants their last hoorah. The village in which Dorn lives was quiet, almost fairy tale esque in its solitude. People would run away from the City to escape it. Or they would never leave. Or, in Dorn's case, return when overwhelmed by the fast-paced world outside, back to the place they felt was safe. It almost felt as if the ferocious wildlife brought life to the village, and the village, much like it's more traditional inhabitants, struggled to cope - though they couldn't help but welcome the wild animals into their home. In the end, Dorn embraces his fears. In a drastic bid to let his emotions fly, he learns to confront his blazing feelings, and his life completely turns around.

This was a short, easy, and quick read. The short chapters gave it a fast-pace, hooking me, and persuading me to read it all in one sitting.

<i>Did Woodcutter know the Animals had not been Formed / For his Pleasure and Use?</i>

For lovers of literary fiction, I highly recommend you pick this up! Out October 4th!

I mistakenly posted a review for another book here through the Netgalley site. I'm trying to resolve this problem but the site won't let me simply delete it. So I am putting in my rating for 'The Animals' here. My apologies for this screw up.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this eARC in return for an honest review.

“The Animals” is a fairytale-esque story about relationships between people and animals and societal norms. Dorn is a model maker who has lived in the same small village for almost his entire life when the community signs up for the “Wild Home Project”, where families are encouraged to take wild animals (such as wolves) into their homes as if they were pets. Soon after the project begins, Dorn is contacted to create a new model, something that carries through the story as a fun little project to occupy Dorn’s mind.

The themes of choosing your own destiny and following your dreams no matter what others may think of you work great as the morals of a fairytale and Cary Fagan has done such a great job of creating a fairytale in the modern day that still feels like the more familiar tales of childhood.

The small but well formed cast was one of my favourite things about “The Animals”, Dorn has such a strong personality that you get to witness through his interactions with various people, and I really loved the way his relationship with Ravenna was talked about but never felt like the focus of the book.

This was a great short little book and it would be such a fun thing to curl up in a chair and read all in one sitting, very cosy vibes, perfect for its October 4th release date.

The village of this work functions as a character of its own alongside its protagonist Dorn, who makes miniature wooden models for the various businesses, even making a raunchy set of BDSM figurines for a local sex shop. There's no better image painted of small town life than Cary Fagan's magical description of the local coffee shop, "It was a little warm and humid, pleasantly womb-like, a place where one might curl up and fall into the deepest sleep." The village is a timeless place, forgotten, passed off between various nations, kept alive by its residents and their quirks, most importantly their deep-seated secrets. The fictional "Vordram", a typical hefty English class work, a blend between Beowulf and Dante's Divine Comedy shows how deeply attached Dorn is to the past, to opportunities not taken, to his usual routine, all in the face of constant change.

His figurines are described by a local bookseller as "bullshit nostalgia", along with the town's commitment to attracting tourist by maintaining an appearance of a medieval village, with the sex shop included. While it begins as a muted survey of a town caught in the fold between past and future, The Animals quickly devolves into a series of chaotic happenings around the town, spurred by Dorn's neighbor suddenly keeping a pet wolf. College, nursing homes, even coffee shops all are steeped in an imaginative and distinct mythology that is an absolute joy to watch unfold. The Animals is ultimately a stunning, magical examination of an artist's attempt to overcome his abandoned dreams and aimless trajectory in order to make his mark on and open up to the world caught between dys and utopia, no matter how feral it gets.

This is a relatively short read and is almost fairy-tale like. We are in a picturesque village that at one time was very popular with tourists but now not quite so much. You get the idea that you are walking through a street full of beautiful olde-worlde cottages. Our main character is Dorn, a very gentle, quiet, unassuming man who makes models. He carves his models from wood in exquisite detail – wait till you read about the model he makes for the sex shop! Most of the shops in the town have one of his models. Every day he visits the coffee shop because Ravenna, a local teacher will be there but Dorn does not have the courage to tell her his feelings. And that is his life, making models. He has a younger brother who is controlling and an elderly father who is just as uncaring. Dorn is a character that you really like, even though you are frustrated that he doesn't tell Ravenna his feelings.

The government then decided to introduce an initiative where families can apply to take a wild animal into their home. His next door neighbour takes a wolf! As you can imagine wild animals and people don't mix. In the midst of this tale Dorn gets a strange commission, almost a foreshadowing of events, events which cause Dorn to, for the first time in his life, to rush towards danger. The ending is sweet and you are left with a feeling of hope for the future.

Like all fairy tales, there must be a moral and I suppose here it is that we must be brave if we want to change our lives. I really enjoyed this.