This short story collection started off really strong and I was really into the first few stories, particularly When Foxes Die Electric and Mermaid Girls. Unfortunately I didn't love the later stories quite as much. I always have a hard time rating short story collections when there's an even mix of stories I loved and stories I didn't enjoy and that's how I felt with this. I ended up taking a very long time to finish this collection because I just lost interest. 3 Stars I guess seems fair...the stories I enjoyed I really enjoyed, but about half of the stories just weren't for me. If you like unsettling, eerie, atmospheric writing I would still recommend - there are some really solid stories here!

Thank you NetGalley and Book*hug Press for the ARC!

This collection is truly gorgeous - relevant, palpable and harrowing - there’s an understated gloom that underpins these fantastic yarns.

My three favourite stories were:
📖 So What If It’s Supposed to Rain
📖 Among Chameleons and Other Shades
📖 When Foxes Die Electric

These stories were very poetically written and full of beautiful and enchanting symbolic references. I loved the the exploration of motherhood in So What If It’s Supposed to Rain, especially the concept of The Mothers.

The journey in Among Chameleons and Other Shades was very endearing and I enjoyed the dystopian like world building going on behind the scenes.

Thankyou to NetGalley and Book*hug Press for the ARC!

This collection. of short stories features a diversity of themes, with elements of horror, environmentalism, patriarchal violence, and sci-fi, there is a lot happening in this debut. Darker than expected. Blending fairy tales and the dark undercurrents of the real world, these stories manage to address modern social issues as well as hypothetical futures.

Paola Ferrante’s striking speculative short story collection Her Body Among Animals dives into the darkness that exists within the domestic spaces where women often find themselves trapped. In these eleven stories, Ferrante utilizes elements of magical realism to draw attention to the universal struggles these women face, from abusive relationships, motherhood, and self-discovery separate from the needs of others. And throughout the collection there is a sense of transformation as these women let go of the people and expectations that have been holding them back from pursuing their own desires and prioritizing their own well-being.

Full review featured in West Trade Review:
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I want to thank NetGalley and Book*hug Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

TW: This book contains very graphic descriptions of bullying, marital abuse, bullying/abuse between children, parental abandonment, sexual assault and drinking/drug abuse.

Canadian author Paola Ferrante’s debut short story collection valiantly blends the human (woman) with the animal (wild). There are individual stories when the result is an intriguing and gripping short story that gives the reader something fresh and engaging and just a little unnerving and uncomfortable (in a good way). As a whole, the collection becomes muddled and begins to drag. By the time I got to the last few stories, I was skipping ahead to see how many pages were left to go until the next one, which is never a good sign. Ferrante is clearly in intelligent writer, but that intelligence seems to be its own worst enemy, with the stories wanting to prove and show just how smart rather than the reader being allowed to come to that conclusion themselves.

Contents:
1. When Foxes Die Electric: A strong, strong opening story and one of my favourites of the collection. Ferrante beautifully blends science fiction with a very human way of seeing the natural world that gives her robotic protagonist a very believable humanity. One of the shorter stories in the collection, When Foxes Die Electric shows Ferrante’s talent well: it’s snappy, quickly creates believable and multidimensional characters, and perfectly balances the nature narrative without it becoming overwhelming and stifling.

2. The Underside of a Wing: One thing Ferrante does throughout the collection is combine multiple pieces of stories into one story, to varying degrees of effectiveness. The Underside of a Wing sees her combining the collection’s thematic animal metaphor (this time: an albatross), Alfred Hitchcock films (related to a broken heart), and the murder of Kitty Genovese (the by-stander effect). Another short, punchy short story, The Underside toes the line of “too much” for the size of its story, but manages to pull it off. Short sections, repetitive phrases, and an obvious, fairly simple storyline allow Ferrante to pack in as much as she does and carries it satisfyingly across the finish line.

3. Mermaid Girls: I really liked the concept of this one: sisters who used to be obsessed with space and stars until one of them becomes boy-obsessed and the other sister starts spending time with a boy who loves sea/ocean/water life. The way that crossover opens up two different vocabularies to talk about life and love is very fun and and leads to moments of language play that are very satisfying. This one also contains multiple storylines: space, water habitats, sister relationships, a parent who walked away, and a first crush and the story length (26 pages) starts to reflect the space necessary to include all of those things. It also starts to feel like something could have been left out to help move the rest of the story along. Focusing on the familial complications would have been enough to tell a whole story, and the first crush bits were my least favourite sections. Although the crush interest is a large part of the water/sea analogies, the sister as mermaid and the sisters’ experiences at the lake, etc. are enough to carry the contrast with their love of stars and space.

4. Finding Houdini: I’m confused if we’re supposed to feel that Jeremy is the bad guy in this story, if both Jeremy and Jess are kind of shitty people or if Jess is the one who needs to learn a lesson. After finding it difficult to eat as a single person in Korea, Jess decides the only way to go out for dinner with another person is on a date (friends are good too!). She hides her love of reptiles and arachnids to get matches on a dating app, and then just refuses to listen when Jeremy tells her they’re not a serious relationship. “I told Jeremy it was things like this that made it look like we were together. He never said we weren’t. There was no proof otherwise.” (Pg. 67) is then followed by: “The way I remembered it, Jeremy must have kissed me.” (Pg. 68) and “I’m sorry […] But this is not what you think it is.” (Pg. 68) and “No matter what Jeremy would say, we were seeing each other in Korea.” (Pg. 68-69). Jess then follows Jeremy to Thailand, lies her way into his house, and puts a snake in his bathroom (!!!) before leaving. As someone absolutely terrified of snakes, maybe I’m weirdly biased, but that is unhinged behaviour and I’m very firmly on the side that Jess needs to figure her shit out. The stories preceding this one firmly put men in the “fucking around and finding out” category (a common thread in the collection), but this one really does have me siding more with the male character instead. Not all mildly shitty behaviour deserves dramatic repercussions and I’d argue Jeremy was exceptionally patient with Jess and had made it very clear he was moving on/away.
5. A Trick of the Dark: Another one of my favourites from this collection and a really good example of how less really can be more. The fewer things (ideas, analogies, etc.) that Ferrante tries to fit into her story, the more that story is allowed to be told. This one is really tight, thematically: a childhood passion for dinosaurs, which leads into bird analogies, and the abusive husband is framed as a dragon when upset, which ties into the protagonist’s childhood with an abusive father. It still pulls in all the animal/nature facts, but with fewer other story threads pulling in other directions, which makes it very enjoyable.
6. Everyday Horror Show: About PPD, this one takes a bit of a turn away from the animal-centre-focused analogies (though there are still environmental anxieties that come up) and instead focuses on horror/ghost stories; post-partum mother as weeping woman/haunting. As much as I find the approach quite interesting (I haven’t seen that before), the story does carry a lot of the same beats/rhythms as The Underside of a Wing, down to the ending where the weeping woman (mother) is told: “With most cases of a weeping woman, the peer support counsellor says, it’s easy to forget that just because no one else sees her, it doesn’t mean she isn’t there.” (Pg. 109), which is nearly identical to what the girl with the albatross is told in the previous story. Of course that’s not a problem, per se, but it does feel repetitive in a collection that already focuses on repetition within stories (either repeating facts, words, or whole phrases). There’s also an almost ridiculous use of parentheses with a lot of information contained. A single page will have half the information within parentheses, which I tend to find quite distracting. As interesting as I found the concept, this was one where I found myself skipping lines/paragraphs because it felt too familiar/repetitive.

7.Pandora: At only four pages, this is the shortest story in the collection and Ferrante still manages to stick quite a lot in there. The narrator is lying on the ground after being run over by a man in a van and “tells” this story to the daughter she’ll never have. It’s not clear if she ever wanted a daughter and the story starts off with her kind of chiding this non-existent daughter (??). From there, she talks about climbing trees, her mother’s desire for her to focus on more “girly” things vs. Her desire to explore, and the driver’s history of being bullied/teased/abused by his brothers and taking his anger out on women. Despite its brevity, this story also has a lot of repetition (words, phrases) and although repetition can really be used to great effect, seeing it in story after story and especially something as short as this one, taking some of it out would help make it more straightforward, especially with how many lines of story there are to follow. It’s also unclear if the man in the van is someone the narrator knew? If he’s the one she used to climb trees with? It’s unclear and again: the story could have benefited from one of its threads being removed to tighten the piece as a whole.

8. Cobwebs: Another one where I’m not entirely sure who the reader is supposed to empathize with. The imagery is confusing as the wife turned spider begins laying eggs but doesn’t tell her husband, who desperately wants children. She wants to focus on her art and continues delaying trying for a child, and then starts turning into a spider too, so it seems, get away from her husband. In the end, she tells him: “I tried to show you. Even in the beginning, I never knew if I wanted an us at all.” (Pg. 129) Which we should all know is not how that works and you have to tell people things explicitly (see Jeremy in Finding Houdini!). I just really didn’t understand whatever was supposed to be coming through with her transformation into a spider and the emphasis on the eggs and am not sure if I’m missing something that’s painfully obvious or if it’s an instance of Ferrante burying the meaning too far down.

9. The Silent Grave of Birds: An absolutely heartbreaking story centring around toxic masculinity and group mentality (animal analogy: wolf packs).
It follows a younger brother, Gavin, with his older brother, Alex, and Alex’s friends who are all awful people. They find a hole with dolls that belong to a kid they seriously bullied, Eli. As they go back, the hole continues to get bigger, deep enough for them to have to use a rope to climb down into. Also interspersed is what the group’s drug use and school skipping, what they did to Eli, what Alex did to his girlfriend, Julie, Gavin’s hidden interest in birds and the environment (which he shares with both Eli and Julie’s sister, Ava), the boys’ missing father, their mother who constantly works and brings home abusive boyfriends, and Gavin’s eventual realization that he can and should stand up to the older boys, but especially Alex.
At 45 pages, it’s a longer story and one of the ones where I found myself trying to see how many pages were left and then skipping paragraphs to get to the end. I really just wanted this one pared down. By the time we get to the last few stories, it feels like the repetition and animal information are no longer helping the stories along but rather are holding them back. We get a lot of time spent on this hole the boys find, the way it gets larger/deeper, the birds they find in it, the positions the dolls are in each time, etc. Again: another case of lots of threads and them starting to get in each other’s way and creating knots instead of weaving together.

10. So What If It’s Supposed to Rain: The Mother is a device that collects all the wisdom of all the mothers of successful people to help mothers raise their children. Most of the bugs have died, people have to wear masks to spend time outside safely, and Lil is pregnant, mother to Yvie, and a fan of bugs and nature, having spent quite a bit of time photographing bugs when Yvie was little.
A very interesting commentary on the expectations placed on mothers, the way there is no “one right way” to raise a child, the way mothers get turned into “someone’s mother” instead of who they actually are (ex. Javier’s mother, Katherine’s mother, etc.).
This one slightly mirrors A Trick of the Dark with a mother suffering from something that makes it difficult for her to connect with or care for her child. As in A Trick, this one also has another female character tell/remind the mother character that they have to let things go, trust their gut, etc. after multiple other women have told the mother they’ll get there or given unwanted advice, passed judgement, etc.
Another one where I found the concept interesting but kept wondering when it was going to end. Lil keeps wondering where her daughter - who is now interested in going outside and trying to save animals/nature - came from and where her small daughter who hated everything to do with bugs went. And this ruminating goes on for most of the story and, again, gets very repetitive and doesn’t give us anything really new and drags the story through its 33 pages.

11. Among Chameleons and Other Shades: Girl meets boy. Boy wants to move to Mars. Boy and girl drive from Toronto to Boca Chica, where they wait for SpaceX to call them up to fly to Mars. This one falls more into the sci-fi category (no surprise), with a little talk of current environmental issues and a solid dose of horror (ghost stories). Another long one (38 pages), this one shows both character’s points of view, or at the very least both of their fears: Maddy’s fear of losing herself to please a boy and Adam’s fear of not understanding/seeing Maddy accurately and subsequently losing her (and also being alone, in general).

As the story progresses, Maddy becomes uncertain that she wants to move to Mars but doesn’t know how to tell Adam, who keeps trying to use their common knowledge about Star Trek and The Jetsons to build a connection. They talk about space, animals, and do seem to have a few things in common, but Maddy doesn’t like causing waves and so keeps any disagreements to herself. After awhile, her shadow becomes its own entity and anytime Maddy’s in the sun, her shadow is the one posing as her: agreeing with Adam, saying yes, laughing with him, etc. Adam doesn’t notice and Maddy increasingly doesn’t want to go outside.

The animal component here is snakes and reptiles: Adam mistakes an anole for a snake and kills it. Maddy is very upset by this because anole’s are harmless. Adam has a memory of a dangerous snake getting into his family’s tent while camping and his dad being very insistent on protecting the people in your life from harm, which is Adam’s intention. He’s also terrified of snakes and reptiles, which Maddy doesn’t understand.

This one definitely took a turn from the rest of the stories: at the end, Maddy and Adam decide not to go to Mars and agree to re-start their relationship from the beginning after Maddy breaks down after Adam tries to propose to her after he finds out they’ve been called up to move to Mars.

Another interesting concept and lots of genre combining, which made for some neat connections and avenues for story telling, but by the time I got to this one, I really just wanted to finish the book and be done. There was, again, a lot of skipping to try and get to the end.

Ferrante’s strong suit really seems to be the shorter short stories, where there’s less space to inject more (ideas, plots, threads, etc.) and subsequently bog it down in repetition and tangled threads. As I’ve said, a lot of the concepts are really intriguing and I applaud Ferrante for the attempts at combining unusual concepts together, but not all of them need to go into a singular story at once.

“𝙃𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙞𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧. 𝙃𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙗𝙬𝙚𝙗𝙨. 𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙, 𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙮, 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙣𝙤 𝙨𝙖𝙙𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨.”

A debut story collection that merges elements of horror, speculative fiction, feminism and ecological/technological unease—Her Body Among Animals achieves something special and unnerving in these varied tales that stick with you.

There was a story about a woman who struggling under the expectations of her husband, turns into a spider that kept me up all night on vacation. There was a story about a sex robot gaining sentience and rebelling against her inventor. One about a dystopian future where every household has an AI “mother” judging your every action as you try to raise you kids. There was a story about a boy being haunted by both dolls and the actions of the group of bullies he runs with that I found hard to get into but then really hit me in the feels. There’s a girl desperate to stop her sister from turning into a mermaid like her absent mother. A college student carrying an actual albatross around her neck. A couple planning to go to mars, road tripping across the USA, until something weird begins to happen with her shadow.

There was so MUCH in this collection, Ferrante has so much to say about toxic masculinity, the societal pressures and expectations put on women to be therapist, mother, maid, nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant—(hey siri play Labour by Paris Paloma)—and then once we’re in those relationships how it diminishes and transforms a person. Where our future is going and how to resist it. Her writing is vivid and bold, and though it takes a minute to warm up to each tale, once you sink into these worlds you feel for the characters deeply.

Short story collections aren’t for everyone but if you can give these a chance they might burrow into you and keep you thinking about them long after you close the book.

Perfect for spooky season.

Many thanks to @zgstories and @bookhugpress for the review copy in exchange for my honest review. I hope you keep publishing books like this!

Her Body Among Animals is the debut collection of short stories by Paola Ferrante. These tales tap into the surreal and the eerie. In eleven stories, Ferrante explores and dissects how the complexities of womanhood run parallel to animals and strange ecological phenomena. A girl is an albatross (The Underside of a Wing) or a spider (Cobwebs). Devastation reigns in every story. As the collection progresses, the landscape becomes more and more wretched, more and more terrifying.

Three of my favorite stories were The Underside of a Wing, Mermaid Girls, and Everyday Horror Show. However, one of the most fascinating stories came towards the end of the book, The Silent Grave of Birds. This story was told through the perspective of a young boy, in stark contrast to the earlier tales of the book, which were told through the lens of women, who loves ornithology but is trapped under the influence of his older brother, ripe with toxic masculinity. One of the longer stories in the collection, The Silent Grave of Birds is a testament to recognizing the horrors and the wrongdoings around you, to actively dedicating yourself to a different story, and it was one of the most powerful stories in the book.

Ferrante brilliantly captures the atmosphere that has a pull on modern audiences without sacrificing an authentic voice. Fans of Girl vs. Void stories, the tv show Black Mirror, ornithology & other sciences, and creepy reads should definitely pick this collection up. Her Body Among Animals is officially released tomorrow, 09/12/2023, and I’ll be eager to pick up the physical edition. Thank you so much to Book*hug Press & NetGalley for the digital galley <3

In her striking debut collection, "Her Body Among Animals," Paola Ferrante masterfully navigates the intersection of horror, fairy tales, pop culture, and sci-fi, offering readers a mesmerizing and thought-provoking journey through a world where women confront the boundaries placed upon their bodies. Within these pages, Ferrante presents a series of stories that delve into the eerie and bizarre ecological disruptions that coexist with violence in a world inhabited by both humans and animals.

One of the standout elements of this collection is Ferrante's fearless approach to storytelling. Her tales are an eclectic mix of genres, each uniquely crafted to challenge societal norms and expectations. From a sentient sex robot breaking free from her programming to an unhappy wife's transformation into a spider, Ferrante pushes the boundaries of imagination, inviting readers to reconsider their perceptions of femininity and identity.

The narrative diversity in "Her Body Among Animals" is remarkable. Ferrante takes us on a journey through the lives of characters grappling with their own demons, such as a grad student battling depression while carrying the weight of an albatross both metaphorical and literal. In another story, a young boy harbors a dark secret that haunts him through a collection of eerie dolls. These narratives weave together a tapestry of emotional complexity and explore the intricate relationships between women and their bodies.

Beneath the surface of these captivating tales, Ferrante skillfully addresses pressing social issues. Her exploration of toxic masculinity and its devastating impact on women and the environment is a powerful and timely commentary. Ferrante doesn't shy away from the universal undercurrent of ecological anxiety, providing a stark reminder of the environmental challenges we face in today's world.

"Her Body Among Animals" is a surreal documentation of past mistakes that continue to shape our present. It offers a glimpse into the complexity of living in a woman's body and the resilience required to navigate a world where boundaries are constantly tested. Ferrante's work is both haunting and haunted, magical and deeply human. It is a testament to her remarkable talent as a storyteller and her unwavering commitment to exploring the intricate relationships between women, their bodies, and the environment.

In a world marked by uncertainty and ecological challenges, "Her Body Among Animals" offers a glimmer of hope. Ferrante's collection encourages us to confront our fears and anxieties, ultimately guiding us toward a future characterized by resilience and possibility. This book is a must-read for those seeking a thought-provoking and beautifully crafted exploration of femininity, identity, and the profound connections between humanity and the natural world. Paola Ferrante's debut is a tour de force that promises to leave a lasting impression on readers.

“Her Body Among Animals” by Paola Ferrante is a collection of eerie short stories that make you experience very interesting perspectives of various women- definitely not your typical short story collection. Think Hiromi Kawakami and Ling Ma vibes but slightly environmentally and horror-coded. To be honest, the first story was my favorite, as you glimpse into the life of a sex robot, while the others dragged for me. And I have arachnophobia, so the spider-woman story I had to skim through most of it. I’m not usually a short story person, in general, and this collection wasn’t an exemption to that, unfortunately. I still appreciate NetGalley for letting me read this arc!

Ferrante's 'Her Body Among Animals' offers a series of surreal and engaging encounters between science fiction, ecology and the violence experienced by women both physically and psychologically. The stream of consciousness style brilliantly enhances the bizarre, surreal nature of these short stories as it becomes unclear as to what is actually happening, and what is ecological metaphor -- thus drawing on a modernist history of animal metamorphosis as a comment on the traumatic experience of contemporary society.

As with all short story collections, there were some stories that truly shone and some which fell flat, feeling somewhat like filler stories derivative of the others as they gave forced ecological metaphors to evoke each narrative's relationships. The stories that really shone were those which were especially concerned with environmental issues, not simply broader ecological metaphors -- drawing the animal metaphor of the modernist short story into the pressing issues of our time. These stories excelled at showing the joint exploitation of both women and the earth under the patriarchy.

Thank you to Book*hug and Net Galley for the free ebook in exchange for my honest review.

AH! OMG I AM SO SPOILT BY BOOKHUG*PRESS!!!!! Yall, this is one of my most anticipated reads of 2023, and I know I say that a lot, but I'm always right and always, always in good company, book-wise. Her Body Among Animals is set to publish on September 12, 2023 and I have Bookhug*Press, Paola Ferrante, and Netgalley to thank for the advanced digital and physical copies.

YALL KNOW I'm a HOE for a good collection of short stories, especially when they convey an eerie angle of sorts, and Her Body Among Animals did just that. Positioning women as the subjects who endure pain and traumas from their male companions, karma is delivered in a slew of sci-fi and speculative manners that left me thinking, "Good for Her." If you're in your "Good for Her" era, this book is FOR YOU, a thousand times over and over again.

Thank you to Net Galley and Book*hug press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the first few stories of this collection, my favourite being the very first one about the sentient sex robot. I think fans of Black Mirror will especially like this tale. I enjoyed the albatross story as well and found the metaphor satisfying but not so overly artistic that it became a negative. Unfortunately, as I kept reading, I loved the stories less and less. They seemed a bit contrived and it felt as though the author had 3 or 4 good stories to fit the theme, then tried to fill up the rest of the book with less formed ideas. I wasn’t such a fan of the stream-of-consciousness style either as it went on.

Overall, I think the first few stories are definitely worth a read. I wish this collection was around 5 stories instead of 11, then I think I would have enjoyed each story for its oddities rather than growing tired of their similarities in style.

A wonderful collection of surreal feminist stories about grief, abuse and female trauma. Perfect for fans of Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.
Very metaphorical writing but not to the point where it’s obnoxious or hard to understand. It’s a fast read and pretty short as well.

I really loved this collection of short stories and will definitely be buying a copy when it comes out!

Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Her Body Among Animals, by Paola Ferrante, is a collection of science fiction short stories that range from the bizarre to the disturbing. The book is marketed as literary fiction.

I did not enjoy this book and found it a challenge to get through. In all honesty this was a DNF for me at 30%. In fairness, I did skip ahead and try other stories, with the hope that the writing style would shift.

What worked:

The author did a good job of eliciting feelings of uncomfortableness at times, and I think her goal was to have the reader get inside of the character’s heads, from a feminine perspective, and to begin to experience things like anxiety, depression, fear, and misogyny. From the marketing description, the author wanted to look at things from an ecological and systemic perspective. The author is also very public about her struggles with her own depression, and this bleeds through into her writing. I admire her for raising awareness of mental health issues that many suffer from.

What didn’t work:

Ferrante chose to write in a stream of consciousness style for much of the book. This was a daring move, and can be quite effective if done correctly. This style drops the reader into the character’s direct thoughts, and if used correctly can be powerful. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work in this case. I found the writing to be tedious, disjointed, and disorienting as the reader. In addition to the very confusing prose, which felt like a hybrid of poetry and stream of conscious dithering, the author peppered the writing with obscure animal facts, and attempts at allegory. It just left me, as the reader, feeling like she was trying to be cerebral, but she was trying too hard and ended up with a disjointed mess. I was not able to make the connections between the animal facts and what was actually happening in the story.

While I realize that this is a collection of short stories, there was very little character development in any of them. Given that they are short stories, it’s even more important to quickly draw the reader into a character in a very short time.

In addition to the confusing prose, the ARC copy that I received had some major formatting issues. Chapters started in the middle of the page, and there were gaps in the text.

This book also doesn’t really fit any certain genre, as there are elements of horror, science fiction, poetry, and speculative fiction.

The whole book just left me feeling like someone was desperately trying to make a point about an abstract painting, but it was as if I was listening to it all in a frantic, breathless, foreign language muffled through a wall.

I giving this book two stars out of five.

A haunting collection of short stories that encourage one to think about the outside perspectives surrounding the standard lanes in life. Some stories are slightly more eerie than others, and so I would recommend this book only to someone who enjoys hair-raising and slightly bizarre tales.

(ARC review via NetGalley)

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

As a fan of weird short stories, I was inclined to like "Her Body Among Animals" from the start. I've not read Paola Ferrante's previous works, so I didn't know exactly what to expect, but her writing focuses on unusual perspectives in female experiences: from a sentient sex-doll, to a woman who becomes a spider, to the threat of turning into a mermaid, transformation and reclamation are big themes in this collection, Recommended for fans of Kelly Link and Mona Awad.