Book: Our Animal Hearts
Author: Dania Tomlinson
Country: Canada (British Columbia)
Review: 4/5
I am truly enjoying the process of finding copies of my books for this challenge: I found this book in a little free library down the road in my small town in the Okanagan. I gravitated to it straight away: I am currently doing a challenge to read books from every country (follow my journey @BeyondPageOne on Instagram) and was searching for my Canadian book. How perfect was it to stumble upon this gem, which could hardly be any closer to home for me? I could certainly relate to the descriptions of Okanagan landscapes and living, despite the 80+ year age difference. Beautiful cover as well.
I absolutely loved the folklore of the novel which seamlessly integrated the real and mythological worlds Iris and her mother faced until they became one. This mythological climate was a gorgeous mix of Japanese, Welsh, Indigenous and Canadian stories, which I think reflects well on the makeup of BC. One very interesting element was the climate of war which was added to the story which of course I have never experienced in our little community, and I honestly have little knowledge of how our town looked in real life during that time. Reading this one rendition aided me in accessing that version of the Okanagan.
I found the characters easy to visualize, and each had its place in the story. Reading other reviews for this novel, it was often pointed out the dislike for Iris and her actions: she doesn’t correct the wrongs she makes, and at times was difficult to connect with. While I agree that Iris’ feelings and actions would not align with my own, and I did not feel particularly close to her, I would like to note that we don’t have to like the protagonist to have a beautiful story, which does a great job of explaining why she is the way she is.
I loved the rawness in this book as well, there was not much sugarcoating, which reflects well on the time period, the dark subjects and the creepy stories integrated into the book. I found it to be almost poetic in the richness of the writing, which is fantastic for a first novel.
The reason I gave it 4/4.5 stars out of 5 is the overall plot. I found it moved quite slowly and a bit scattered between love triangles, war, a mentally-unstable mother and lake monsters, and lacked some of the suspense/mystery that I was expecting. This is just my opinion and there was some great substance to the novel.
Thanks for this lovely local read! Sad to part with it but I will be passing this on to another little library for others to enjoy! Stay tuned for other book recommendations for this country and other countries, and follow my journey on Instagram @beyondpageone and find more reviews on my GoodReads page: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/116494925-kaitlyn-nightingale Thank you and happy reading!
Feature image from Goodreads.