The Animals in That Country
Jan. 14th, 2026 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay tells the story of Jean, who works in a wildlife park and has a special relationship with the dingoes, which is developed much further when a plague leaves people able to interpret the body language and noises of animals as speech.
Jean ends up going on a road trip with Sue the dingo and sees first-hand the implications and consequences of this increased connection between humans and animals. And it's not pretty.
This book is not an easy read - but it's definitely a worthwhile one. I particularly like the fact that what the animals say is weird, alien and largely very creepy. The books is fairly unpleasant in places, but it's both impactful and compelling - I read it in two days and stayed up way too late reading on both of them!
In terms of its arc, it really reminded me of Flowers For Algernon. It didn't hit as hard, but I thought it was really good overall.
Jean ends up going on a road trip with Sue the dingo and sees first-hand the implications and consequences of this increased connection between humans and animals. And it's not pretty.
This book is not an easy read - but it's definitely a worthwhile one. I particularly like the fact that what the animals say is weird, alien and largely very creepy. The books is fairly unpleasant in places, but it's both impactful and compelling - I read it in two days and stayed up way too late reading on both of them!
In terms of its arc, it really reminded me of Flowers For Algernon. It didn't hit as hard, but I thought it was really good overall.
