Strange Animals

by Jarod K. Anderson

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Rating:

Synopsis:

After a series of inexplicable encounters upends his life, Green finds himself alone and terrified in the Appalachian mountains, full of questions about the transformation he’s undergoing and the impossible creatures he’s starting to see.

When he meets a hermit named Valentina, he realizes that something more than chance has brought him to her door. For she has devoted centuries to researching the hidden world of cryptids that Green is only now beginning to perceive.

As Green begins his studies beneath her watchful eye, he comes face to face with time-stopping giant moths, cyclops squirrels, and doorways to elsewhere. Along the way come clues about his own nature and the powerful beings who led him here—and, most wondrous of all, a sense of fulfillment like nothing he’s felt before.

But Green’s new happiness promises to be short-lived, because alongside these marvels lurks a deadly threat to this place he’s already come to love.

I was very curious about Jarod K. Anderson’s Strange Animals after I read other bloggers’ reviews, so I started it pretty quickly after getting my copy (which isn’t always the case, ahaha). I had some ideas about what was going on from the reviews, but I don’t know that I really expected the things that actually grabbed me.

The story teases around the edges of horror fiction at the start, with Green’s first encounter with what he’ll discover are in fact cryptids, his unease leading into terror. I felt it resolved more straight-forwardly into feeling like a fantasy after he meets Valentina: the fact that she somewhat understands what’s going on, or at least offers a framework to understand it, and the way Green learns to shift his perspective toward study helps to take some of the fear out of it.

The part that really got me hooked was when Green is asked to study the rag moth. Sure, the part where he falls asleep and wakes up surrounded was uneasy again, but his slow easing into an attitude of curiosity and study was fascinating, and the creature itself is a fascinating idea. After that, I was eager for Valentina to teach him more and show him more of the world he’s only beginning to learn to see and understand.

There was a certain amount of predictability to how it all works out, but not in a bad way: it was satisfying to see Green figure it out and stop feeling lost and passive and scared, and instead find it in himself to act.

I’d have loved to know more about Valentina and Catskill, seen more and more cryptids, and learned more about what Green is exactly, but I also appreciated this for what it was and found it very satisfying.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)