V171 reviewed Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony
Review of 'Enter the Aardvark' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
After reading, and falling in love with, The Convalescent many years ago, I was ecstatic to pick up another Jessica Anthony book, but nervous considering I read her last book in about 2010 when I was over a decade younger. But I was thrilled to find that her unique writing style and charming, yet deceptively deep narratives pulled through again.
This book is a biting political satire that has some surprisingly endearing moments to it. While it does technically have a few of the common "problematic" gay tropes that I hate (bury your gays [emphasis on the plural], and republicans being closeted queer men making gays acting as their own oppressors), I found that I didn't mind quite so much here. The story follows two timelines centered around a taxidermied aardvark. The first focuses on the hunting, export, and stuffing of the aardvark and the associated complex relationships around it. …
After reading, and falling in love with, The Convalescent many years ago, I was ecstatic to pick up another Jessica Anthony book, but nervous considering I read her last book in about 2010 when I was over a decade younger. But I was thrilled to find that her unique writing style and charming, yet deceptively deep narratives pulled through again.
This book is a biting political satire that has some surprisingly endearing moments to it. While it does technically have a few of the common "problematic" gay tropes that I hate (bury your gays [emphasis on the plural], and republicans being closeted queer men making gays acting as their own oppressors), I found that I didn't mind quite so much here. The story follows two timelines centered around a taxidermied aardvark. The first focuses on the hunting, export, and stuffing of the aardvark and the associated complex relationships around it. The second takes place in modern day Washington D.C. where a shitty Republican, log cabin homosexual politician receives this stuffed aardvark, which subsequently ruins his life by way of complex relationships that mirror those in the former timeline. It was the relationship parallels that I found to be the best part of the story. What is tragic in one is comical in the other. What is charming and lovable in one, is aggravating and hypocritical in the other. At times, these parallels were a bit too on the nose, and some of the satirical themes were quite heavy handed, but all in all, I found it to be a humorous and touching read that has cemented Anthony as a must read author for myself.
