This was strange but beautiful- I thought I’d be put off by the sexual content but the prose was just so beautiful.

(Sorry, I read this so long ago I don't remember much about it other than that I thought it was interesting, so gave it three stars on GoodReads)

So sorry for the delay in getting this review to you, Loved it, such a raw and interesting way of story telling, it's heart breaking, funny and thought provoking. Recommended.

A very narrow focused novel told through the eyes of a self-obsessed individual is nothing new. They can be fantastic works that are revelatory and cult classics – hello, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Prozac Nation, I Love Dick et al. However, for this to be the case, they do need to bring something new to the table.

For the first 50 or so pages of New Animal, I thought we did have something fresh and exciting – a deeply introverted young woman who numbs herself against her isolated job as a morgue make-up artist with an endless cycle of underwhelming casual sex. We seemed to start in a good place. However, for me, that promise didn’t really pay off.

Amelia is an interesting character and the sudden unexpected death of a family member could have been the jump off point to any sort of examination of self yet, instead, Ella Baxter takes our anti-heroine further into sex with a headlong dive into BDSM and the supposed analysis of the loop of sex, death and violence.

I felt at times this was little more than an attempt at shock value We lose Amelia as a figure of complex nuance and it all gets a little bit two dimensional. And, honesty, a Gen z millennial with an inability to emotionally connect isn’t really news and I would have enjoyed a more innovative and interesting consideration of the topic.

New Animal is a thought-provoking and compelling novel that explores the theme of self-discovery and transformation. The book tells the story of Millie, a young woman who is struggling to find her place in the world and navigate the complexities of modern life. When she is introduced to a group of people who are experimenting with a new drug that promises to unlock the full potential of the human mind, Millie sees an opportunity to escape her mundane existence and discover her true self.

One of the strengths of New Animal is its vivid and immersive storytelling. Baxter has a gift for creating rich and detailed descriptions of characters and settings that draw the reader in and keep them engaged throughout the book. The world of the novel is both familiar and strange, as the characters move through a world that is recognizable yet transformed by the effects of the drug they are taking.

Another strength of the book is its exploration of complex philosophical themes. Through Millie's journey, the novel raises questions about the nature of consciousness, the meaning of identity, and the relationship between the individual and society. Baxter handles these themes with sensitivity and nuance, avoiding simplistic answers and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Some readers may find it difficult to relate to. Millie's internal struggles, which can feel repetitive. And some of the other characters can come across as caricatures rather than fully realized individuals.

But in its essence, New Animal is a captivating and thought-provoking novel that will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction with a touch of science fiction and philosophy. While it may not be for everyone, those who are willing to invest the time and effort into the book will find it a rewarding and memorable reading experience.

I usually love novels (which are now in abundance) centred around unhinged female characters + "New Animal" also has one amazing cover - I was sold! Sadly, the book did not live up to my expectations.

It read really well (Ella Baxter's writing is good!). But it was just too much packed in one small novel (it is a debut) - a young woman working as a funeral home cosmetician (what a fantastic premise!), suicide of an ex (?) lover (interesting turn), addiction to one-night stands (a bottomless hole here!), a death of a parent and uncontrollable grief (could be a book of its own!) and then, this...

"Hi, I recently experienced being a sub, but am more interested in trying out domming." Wow, what a turn of events!

Provocative? Perhaps. Sexy? Not really. A page-turner? Despite everything, I struggled. Moreover, I felt some scenes were there to add to the shocking value only, were forced and did not add to the narrative. Occasionally, I found myself being bored.

I adored the beginning & the end of the novel. It's quirky & relatable.
But the middle felt was a let down.

A short but very impressive debut. I put off reading this for a while due to the depressing subject matter , I have to be in the right mood for books like this to work for me and I am glad I waited until I craved a dark read ..

It is essentially a book which focuses on the exploration of grief and how Amelia deals with grief and loss through sex and BDSM. The book is so many things, it's raw, dark, sad , yet has a witty humour undertone which works well . Amelia is your typical flawed messy character yet you warm to her . It is also quite steamy in parts and at sometimes maybe a bit farcical but if you take it with a pinch of salt then it doesn't spoil the overall reading experience.

Definitely an author I will be keen to read more of

If you are a fan of Twenty-First-century young female messed up characters, New Animal, debut novel of Australian author Ella Baxter, is for you. Amelia is a make up artist in a mortuary but spends her nights dating strangers, whom she indifferently kicks out after the encounter. She finds serenity in her job, as the world of the dead is more reassuring and free of the anxiety that characterises the world of the living, Casual sex is a way of filling the internal void she constantly experiences. One day she runs into man who proposes a BDSM encounter. Unable to process the sudden death of her mother, she launches into an exploration of kink.

In general I found Amelia’s and other characters’ psychological portrait, motives and explanation of trauma pedantic and simplistic at the same time, with statements such as:

“Most nights I find myself trying to combine with someone else to become this two-headed thing with flailing limbs, chomping teeth and tangled hair. This new animal. I am medicated by another body.”

The writer’s interest in BDSM was sparked by having been invited, unaware, to a kink party. (https://bombmagazine.org/articles/suburban-kink-parties-and-scorched-earth-novels-ella-baxter-interviewed/). Baxter further researched the topic and this reflects in the various explanations and experiences that Amelia await Amelia at a kink support group, which makes some parts feel like a sort of manual, with the bonus of discussing consent. To me it feels like the kink is there to add shock value to an otherwise weak plot, like when it seems that Amelia only comes to terms with her mother's death when she finds herself choking on her panties which have been stuffed in her mouth (meh).

While certain aspects were underwhelming, the writing filled with dark humour and self-irony rescues the novel and makes for an interesting read in part. I look forward to reading more from Baxter, who is now working on a novel that reflects her experience dealing with a stalker.

2.5

Brilliantly written, disturbing, and the depiction of all-encompassing grief was amazing. I think a little too on the disturbing front for me (one scene in particular!), although I absolutely flew through this book.

Amelia works at her family-run funeral parlour. She loves her job as a cosmetic mortician, but in her personal time she seeks out men online to have meaningless sex with. When her mother suddenly dies in an accident Amelia’s world turns upside down.

This book needed content warnings. The depiction of anything sexual related was harrowing, graphic, and at times extremely vulgar. At the beginning of the book it is very clear that Amelia does not have a healthy relationship with sex. She disassociates while having sex. Then in the second half she joins a BDSM club. From my limited understanding of BDSM, consent, safety, and understanding are paramount. Amelia uses BDSM to feel something after her mother’s death, from feeling pain, to establishing a sense of power, and even to find oblivion. These scenes are incredibly graphic, and it is clear that Amelia is in not in a healthy place to be taking part in this. I have read a lot of reviews that have mentioned how badly represented the BDSM sections are in this book, and I wanted to include that in my review.

It was Amelia’s grief that I found saved this book for me. Her pain was raw, and watching her try to grapple with how she viewed death and funerals from her job’s viewpoint with now going through the process herself was an interesting point.

This book is one that I would tell people to read reviews first. The blurb does reveal key plot points, but does not tell you how incredibly graphic, disturbing, and destructive the book will be.

The premise of this book was amazing, but I was left disappointed with how rushed it felt. The sex definitely felt like it'd been written by someone who had researched but not experienced the scene, right in so many ways but also missing the mark in so many others. That said, it was enjoyable and easy to read, definitely a great debut novel.

There were plenty of aspects of this book I enjoyed but overall felt the story felt a little disjointed and not cohesive. The opening to the novel sucked me in, a young woman dealing with the unexpected death of someone close to her the previous year and trying to heal from that through sex whilst working at a funeral home seemed the perfect start to a novel I would typically adore but then we veered off into a completely different book altogether when she runs away after losing her mother and starts getting into the world of BDSM. And again the BDSM elements would have been a great addition if they had been handled correctly, I understand that Ameila herself is not meant to understand the rules and restrictions governing the BDSM world but the lack of consent throughout those scenes just seemed a little problematic to me.

Overall the book was very well written and I did manage to read it over two sittings, I was just left feeling a little disappointed.

A book that is about sex, death and BSDM is obviously going to grab your attention but the amazing thing about New Animal is that it is attention seeking yet also quite captivating. Within the first few opening lines I was immediately gripped and felt and instant connection to Amelia. There are so many layers of emotions within this book that it's easy to get swept up and consumed by Amelia's apparent damaged self. Her job as a cosmetician/embalmer is handled with such beauty and tenderness and really gives an interesting insight into the one part of herself that is holding it together. This contrasted with how Amelia is using sex to just simply survive, numbing herself while simultaneously trying to feel something, makes for a truly powerful read.

Unfortunately the BDSM section left this book down for me, while clearly the author put huge effort into researching the topic, sadly this hasn't translated into the book content. These sections feel a little forced, almost gratuitous and completely ignore the whole concept of safe, sane and consensual which underpins the BDSM community. The concept of Amelia using BDSM to feel a sense of power, sense of self and indeed any feeling at all after she lost her mother is an interesting one but just didn't reach it's full potential.

This is a raw, fascinating, punchy and visceral debut from Ella Baxter and I am very excited to see what more is to come.

Amelia Aurelia works as cosmetician at her stepfather's mortuary. She loves her work but has a more difficult time with her life, using sex to forget her troubles but finding no lasting peace. When she suffers a terrible unexpected loss she flees the normally comforting atmosphere of the funeral parlor for her birth father's home in Tasmania. An encounter with a stranger leads her into the local BDSM scene in the hope that this is what her sexual encounters have been lacking.

This is a strange one. Although it's elements are original it still feels very familiar, as if it's pieced together from ideas inspired by other works. It reminded me of Sally Rooney, that brilliant archetype of millennial writers and Emma Jane Unsworth, with a morbid flavour reminiscent of Kristen Arnett. The problem is that it all feels a little overdone. Baxter dials up the quirkiness, from Amelia's improbable name, to her unusual job and her family dynamics (her brother is in a throuple). These disparate elements run up against eachother uncomfortably and create something that's almost a parody. Add in the BDSM and there's just a little too much to be realistic.

The "kink" scenes manage to be both brash and tentative and Amelia's gut-wrenchingly awful first attempt at dominance boils over into a farce that is excruciating without being funny. There's also a lack of clear consent that casts a overall negative light on the whole BDSM scene that I don't think is intentional. A sex club incident is clearly framed as problematic and against the norm and yet a later scene which follows Amelia's introduction to a better BDSM group also includes the line "I don't do safe words, I rely on intuition", and unsurprisingly it gets uncomfortable from there. I don't pretend to know much about BDSM or kink but I'd be surprised if advocates didn't find these depictions an issue. It also doesn't really lead Amelia anywhere on her grief journey, so it's difficult to see what the point is except to emphasise that she isn't going to find her answers in sex.

Nevertheless, I found Baxter's prose engaging and sometimes beautiful. She should rely less on plot and more on the quality of her writing, which is high. I'll look forward to reading more from her in the future.

The synopsis of this book and me eager to read it. However, the actual storyline put me off.it felt like I had read snippets from 3 totally different books. The first part where we meet the main character and what she does for work and how a death of someone close to her had affected her so she needed sex to deal with her feelings. Then another death and she leaves. She gets into the world of kink when really it's 3 accounts of kink. Then she suddenly gets a new job and it ends.
The individual parts were readable and didn't stop me from reading but unfortunately it's not one I would read again.

This is a book won’t be for everyone but is a true gem that handles what we are can be faced with as society continues to establish itself.

Intrigued by the synopsis and the writing is good but unfortunately it didn't manage to click with me.

Reading this book, I felt nothing much at all. The characters felt thin and dull to me. I was drawn in by the wonderful cover only to find a dreary interior.

By day, Amelia Aurelia does mortuary make-up at her family's funeral parlour. By night, she manages her feelings by having meaningless sex. The book takes place over the period of a few days, just before and in the aftermath of a devastating and sudden life-changing loss.

In the first couple of paragraphs, I wasn't sure whether this book was for me, or at least for me at the moment. It opens with a slightly depressing-feeling sex scene, and I've read a number of books about messy 20/30-year-old girls recently that were OK but not setting my world alight, so wasn't really feeling another one. But it didn't take long for me to realise that New Animal is a very special book and soon I'd whizzed through it.

Written beautifully and powerfully, New Animal is about life and death and our relationships with ourselves and others (sexual and non-sexual). I was fascinated by the insight into working in the funeral parlour and the character's perspective on it, as well as the glimpse into the BDSM world. I also love how Baxter gradually peals off layers of Amelia, who goes from someone seeming like she knows what she wants and is good at to someone more naive and less secure. Some of the threads and characters aren't explored fully and are left loose at the end, but that felt right for a book that is supposed to be just a snippet in time.

Powerfully written, I'd highly recommend New Animal to those who enjoy books about people (particularly young women) who don't have it all together, with insightful and interesting observations of the world around them.