Amazing

Brilliant. Amazing story, superb narration. Can't wait to read more of her work. .

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unsentimental but moving

people who prefer sympathetic characters, and mean by that nice, or admirable ones might struggle. But if by sympathetic you mean you can emphasise with them, understand them, and by doing so come to care for them more than you'd initially thought, the central character of this book IS sympathetic. Or I'm too cynical about myself to do otherwise.
the narration is better than it seemed at first, especially the speech of animals. at times it felt slightly stilted, but over time it came to work as a middle ground between the performance inherent in a lot of narrations, and simply a sound rendition of the words on the page. I think it's narrated by the author which is excellent because it means this is how the author envisioned the animals speech. and their speech is really the best part of it.
the story, as my heading says, is unsentimental but moving. It raises the question, if we could hear animals speak, would it turn us into vegans, or wholesale animal killers? The implicit answer here is fairly pessimistic.
if you're not the kind of person who uses 'does the dog die' for that exact question look away now. if you are: a dog does, it's upsetting but brief. But the one you'll start wondering/worrying about from the early chapters: no.

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Entertaining eye opening and painful

An unusual first person narrative, a bush granny with boots as big as her mouth into which any intoxicant is poured, so her actions lose their bearings, over and over on her cackhanded journey to be with her kin, as the world becomes both easier and far harder to understand.

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1 person found this helpful

Raw and original

I really like the theme. It's something I've not encountered before and certainly the raw dialogue helps a lot bring authenticity to the story.

I don't want to add anything to the summary. But I will describe the book as brutal, raw, animalistic, increasingly depressing, but also, quite importantly too, original.

My only caution to readers is that for an audiobook you need to stop and focus on the story. This isn't a book I'd recommend to listen to while doing chores.

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awsomely strange and gripping

loved this thought provoking book . found myself fully immersed in this wonderful book

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Really interesting concept

Really interesting concept, in all the speculative fiction I've read not something I've come across before. This is a genre I love, one of the reasons I love it is because a small change in the status qi can reveal so much about society and people. This book does this really well.

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A strange, stilted story

I found the premise fascinating, especially given the current global pandemic - what if a disease could make you understand what animals, birds and insects are saying? The characters are interesting, raw and realistic. However, I did find that the plot dragged, and it took me a long time to finish listening to the book. The performance was oddly stilted which somehow suited the animal voices, the confusion, the drink and disease, but made it a hard listen.

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Something a bit different

I heard this book reviewed on Radio 4 so I decided to buy it, despite the mixed reviews. I enjoyed it as it is different. It explores what might happen if animals/humans could communicate, but that’s where the similarity between Dr.Doolittle ends. However I wasn’t totally engrossed and had to go back a few times. If you don’t like bad language don’t listen, but if you don’t mind if it is in context and fits the character, read on. The writer/narrator is Australian, I felt this was right for the book. It has an inconclusive ending which I found sad, but all in all, a good listen.

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Terrible in so many ways

The narration, the characters, the story. We read this book for our book club and it was agreed it was one of the worst yet

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not my cup of tea

Really disappointed with this book. Minimal storyline, poor language, nothing good to write I'm afraid

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