Customer Reviews

The God of Animals : A Novel

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Young Alice Winston is the endearing narrator of this coming of age debut novel, The God of Animals. Alice has seen a lot of disappointment and despair in her young life: her mother is basically an emotional cripple, refusing to leave her bedroom; her father is a pie-in-the-sky horse businessman, always looking for his big break but refusing to deal with his financial problems; her older sister, Nona, has escaped the drudgery of running the horse farm by running off with a rodeo cowboy. Alice finds herself as the destined one to help save the farm, but it's clear that she, too, longs to escape, and when the tragic death of a local girl entwines itself into her life, Alice uses the event as a springboard to a relationship with her male English teacher.

The theme of loneliness pervades this novel and Alice is indeed a heart-wrenching character. As a mother, I simply wanted to reach through the pages and enfold her; she deserved so much more than being caught up in keeping her father's dream alive while standing on the edges of the world swirling around her. I could feel her thought processes clearly and understand them well. However, Alice seems to be one of only perhaps two or three sympathetic characters in the entire novel. Perhaps life is really like that, but the relentlessness with which the author introduces flawed characters makes this a bleak story with very little hope for poor Alice. If indeed one adult in her life had been upstanding and sensitive to her needs beyond what it might earn for them, Alice might have not felt the need to turn to inappropriate measures for attention and validation.

This is a good debut novel. Kyle makes her characters and setting come alive and keeps the pages turning. The only thing missing is a sense of hope, at least through 99% of this well-written novel. My own imagination will have to supply the ending I want for Alice...and that is probably what the author intended all along. Recommended.

I can't speak highly enough of this novel. I was shocked to learn that it was a debut because it is so brilliant, sophisticated, and emotional. It also happens to be one of those rare literary page-turners. I almost missed work because I couldn't put it down. All I can say is that I want more, more, more from this author. If you read one work of fiction this year, make it The God of Animals.

"God of Animals," by Aryn Kyle, is an unflinching, powerful, honest, and achingly beautiful coming-of-age tale set in the American West. The period is most likely the mid-1970s--a time before computers, the Internet, cell-phones, satellite T.V., and antidepressant medications. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Alice Winston, a lonely twelve-year-old growing up on an aging horse ranch in Desert Valley, Colorado. There are two transitions that take place over the course of the novel: one involves the ranch moving in a new direction, and the other involves Alice growing into adolescence. Both are wrought with difficulty and pain.

The ranch has been in the family for three generation, but it's fallen on hard times and may not survive. Rich suburbs are taking root everywhere and the ranchers must adapt or fail. The days of proud horse breeding are over. The new business is catering to the needs of wealthy suburban horse lovers. It's the direction and reality of modern life. There is nothing they can do to halt it.

Alice's transition into adolescence is just as inevitable and wrenching, but there's a twist. At twelve, Alice is already an adult. It's primarily Alice's body that's undergoing change, but naturally the bodily changes induce a flood of emotional and psychological changes as well. It is these that Alice has difficulty understanding, and there is no one in her life to help. Alice's mother is clinically depressed--she's barely left her bedroom since Alice was a baby. Once a star horsewoman, now she is a mental invalid incapable of parenting Alice in any meaningful way. Alice's father, Joe, is overwhelmed keeping his business afloat, and is blind to his daughter's emotional needs. He fails his daughter at every turn. Alice has had to parent herself--in almost every way, she is mature beyond her years. Alice's older sister is gone. She ran away a year ago to marry a cowboy. Alice has no friends--she's different, isolated, not like the other primarily suburban girls that populate her school. Adding to her emotional anguish, a classmate recently drowned. It's a difficult time, and Alice feels isolated, alone, adrift, and abandoned.

Alice's father, Joe, treats her like an adult ranch hand. When she's not at school, she's expected to do a man's work. Joe is a rough unsentimental realist, and is obviously trying to raise Alice in the same mold. But Alice is having a hard time remaining unsentimental. Unlike her father, she is acutely aware of the emotional side of life, particularly the emotional needs of animals. She looks at their suffering and feels that the world is as blind to their needs as it is to hers. With practiced detachment, she takes in all the everyday cruelty and abuse that often forms the foundation of ranching. Outwardly, she does not flinch, but inwardly she rails against it. Alice knows all too well that the world can be cruel and unforgiving.

Two adults eventually enter Alice's life and offer her some degree of emotional support. Unfortunately, she finds out that both are merely using her to achieve their own private agendas.

This is a simple story about everyday realities. I loved both the human and animal characters, as well as the rich acceptance of reality that underscore this humane novel. I also loved the author's fresh, powerful prose.

Don't read this novel if you are looking for a strong compelling story leading to a definite conclusion. This is not that type of novel. This is a subtle, unflinchingly honest view of life in all its complexity. It is a book about coming to terms with the reality of human isolation and cruelty. It's about making peace with the dark core of humanity.

My eyes brimmed with tears when I finished this novel--not with sadness, but with acceptance and truth.

This is a beautifully written coming of age story about a 12 year old girl discovering that people are complicated and live their lives not in black and white, but in complex shades of gray. While it is NOT a book "about horses", it is set against a backdrop of a Colorado horse ranch and Aryn Kyle does a marvelous job of transporting the reader into that world. You almost can feel the oppressive heat and smell the horse manure.

Alice is 12 and lives on her family's horse farm. Her father is gifted with horses but emotionally isolated, her mother is a depressive who rarely leaves the bedroom and her older sister has run away with a cowboy from the rodeo. Alice is lonely but she never dips into self-pity. She finds it hard to create relationships with others and the one person that she really opens up to is a teacher from her school - but only over the telephone, never in person.

"The God of Animals" draws you in and keeps a firm grip on you. Alice felt so real to me. Most of the other characters, while interesting, are fairly one-dimensional - but I felt that was appropriate given that is how a 12 year old views the adult world. When someone who she has pigeoned as "good" does something "bad", she struggles to come to terms with that. Likewise she finds it hard to understand and accept her mother's and sister's behavior.

I'm surprised by some of the other reviews. I did not find this book depressing. I found most of the characters quite sympathetic. Even the ones who made poor choices had redeeming features. There are two main incidents when horses are mistreated and they are not pleasant to read but nor do they take over the story. I did feel that the book lost momentum at the end, as if Rand just didn't know how to finish it. I also would have liked more understanding or resolution about why her mother never left the bedroom and about her sister's behavior. But these flaws aside, I was impressed by the book and enjoyed it very much. Several days after finishing it, it is still very much on my mind, which to me is the sign of a good book.

Everyone has that special shortlist of novels that they consider their favorites. They're not just good books or enjoyable reads, they are the BEST books--the ones you can't stop reading whilst also dreading that you are going to reach the last page. The ones you recommend again and again. THE GOD OF ANIMALS is now on my list. Set in present-day Colorado and featuring some of the truest characters I've read in a long time, this novel is full of subtly powerful scenes. I should have been working (and later sleeping) but I just couldn't stop reading. Aryn Kyle is an extraordinarly gifted and perceptive writer and storyteller, and I loved every word of this book. Highly recommended.

I have to give The God of Animals an average rating for the following:

Miss Kyle's work has been compared by critics to that of Harper Lee. I don't believe this is a valid comparison as her protrayal of a 12 year old girl and the narrative voice she gives to this child lack the accuracy and verisimilitude that Harper Lee had in such abundance. Authors such as Lee and L.M. Montgomery have much more accuratly captured the character of a young woman growing up. Kyle falls into the trap of making her 17 year old narrator's "voice" indistinguishable from that of her character at 12.

Miss Kyle also commits a cardinal sin in writing realistic fiction. That sin being writing about a setting one has a less than perfect understanding of. Miss Kyle did indeed ride for a short time as a girl but the shalowness of this experience is evident. Straw is not common bedding for horses, using an pin to hold an ace bandage on a horse isn't done, a horse isn't still called a foal when you start breaking him to ride, coiling a rope around your hand is stupid and wouldn't be done by the experience horsepeople her characters are supposed to be, and the brutality of a twitch is entirely fabricated (talk to any large animal veterinarian), horses aren't usually lunged with a crop (see lunge whip), and I can't recall ever seeing a horses feet wrapped at a show in order to keep them clean (legs maybe feet I don't think so). These inconsistencies while small nagged at me and kept popping up throughout the novel. They spoiled large portions of the book for me. I understand that fiction has a license to stretch reality but realistic fiction is more effective in my eyes when it is realistic. The author does well in many instances but shows herself to be a bit sloppy in others. If she wants to rest so much of her novel on a world she has limited experience with it would behoove her to do a little more fact checking.

Aryn Kyle's debut novel tries to enter the realm of Annie Proulx and author's like her. Miss Kyle lacks the experience and depth of such authors. Maybe this is something she will be able to bring to her work with age and more experience.

I read a lot, and every now and then a book comes along that I feel I just have to write a review for. The God of Animals is one such book. I bought an autographed copy at my local bookstore, and as soon as I read the first chapter I dropped every other book I was reading. This is writing of the highest order - beautiful, lyrical prose, along with a unique narrator and a page-turning plot. It's just so perfectly composed, it blew me away. I loved this book so much I actually felt personally wounded when I saw a one-star review further down the page (but I guess there's always one, even for the best novels). I could not put this book down. Aryn Kyle's novel is one of those books that reminds you why you love reading in the first place. If only there were more books like this!

I had a writer try to explain to me the difference between "commercial" writers and great writing. I really was unsure of what she meant until now. I was in the middle of a book when I purchased The God of Animals. I started reading this wonderful novel and was taken back by the beautiful imagery that was written on its pages. Once finished with The God of Animals , I went back to my "commercial" book and within the first few pages I stopped. I had for the first time experienced what reading a truly great book was all about. Aryns book was a wonderful, beautiful experience that i will gladly recommend to all.

Since there are many other reviews of this book I will skip the recap.
I found this book quite compelling, well written and well crafted. The world of Alice was very real in my mind. I recommend reading this book.
My only issue was that while I believe it seems that this took place in the 70s? 80s? yet for Alice to know so little about her family could only have happened in an earlier, more repressed time frame. The same goes for her Mother's depression which no one ever seems to have addressed in any way. And how could Alice walk the same lonely road home from school everyday and know so little about Polly?
The book was engrossing but these sorts of practical questions kept popping up.
I do wish there were more personal benefactors out there like Patty Jo. Certainly the world would be a better place for it.

In the manner of young Scout Finch, 12-year-old Alice is the narrator and interpretor of events and behaviors in this debut novel. And, like Harper Lee's young heroine, Alice is motherless, but in a different way. While her mother Marion still lives, she has taken to her bedroom shortly after Alice's birth and stayed there, nearly immobilized with depression, leaving her younger daughter to a neglectful upbringing by her husband, who runs the family horse ranch. The story opens just after the elopement of Alice's elder sister, Nona, an accomplished equestrienne, and the discovery of a young girl's body in a nearby canal. From these two events, Alice's loneliness becomes the driving force of the book, as she fantasizes about the exciting escapades of her sister, fabricates an imagined friendship with the dead young girl, and develops a romantic fixation on her teacher. Her only real friendship develops with the ranch's young riding student, upon whose fees the struggling ranch tries to survive. The story is fraught with tough love and shattered illusions, but also brightened briefly with a few sparks of hope and achievement. I was engrossed by this slice of life so different from my own, and hope that Aryn Kyle will have more to share with us in her writing career.