This collection was well-written and enjoyable to read through, but unfortunately, I felt like there wasn't a lot of payoff to the stories. While I didn't dislike the stories, I also struggled to see the point in them. I tend to prefer short stories that serve a purpose and are really trying to say something, but these just felt like slice-of-life stories without any real purpose.

Maybe I'm not the target audience, though. I think some people would really enjoy these stories, while others (like myself) might struggle to feel fulfilled by the end.

The Whole Animal is Corinna Chong’s debut collection of short stories. It delivers vignettes of characters dealing with discomfort within themselves, with their world, or with where they are in their life. While these characters were forced to face difficulties, they were also coming to terms with what it means to be whole. A beautiful collection with wonderful narration by Laura Miyata.
Thank you NetGalley and Bespeak Audio for early access to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author Corinna Chong, publishers ECW Press Audio, and as always NetGalley, for an advance audio copy of THE WHOLE ANIMAL.

Upon listening to this collection a second time, I realize why I was lost the first time through.

This collection takes a strange form. It is not simply a collection of stand alone short fiction pieces divided by number and title. Granted, some of them are indeed this. Some of them are short fiction pieces divided by number and title that link to the next two or three others by shared theme or character. And some of them are standalone numbered titled short fiction pieces that are a little longer and are themselves subdivided into numbered sections. There doesn't seem to be a common theme or topic among these stories any more specific than "animals," which do make an appearance (sometimes shortlived, but always tortured; here is my big fat TW for animal cruelty) in each story. About the only defining characteristic of note that struck me is the total lack of narrative structure in any of the stories.

I read somewhere that this neglect of plot and narrative is the contemporary lit fic form de jour and I can't say I enjoy it. Perhaps it's meant to reflect the predominant societal ennui with which contemporary humankind finds themselves afflicted, but I still hate it. Life is painful and pointless, but fiction doesn't have to be.

Giving this collection three stars because the form is clever, even if I don't think it makes good reading.

Rating: 🫏🫏🫏 / 5 whole animals
Recommend? Not this time
Finished: May 23 2023 and May 26 2023

*May 23 2023 I need to listen again, my impression of these stories is too opaque.

Being vegan, I was super excited to start reading this because of the animal theme. The stories were very complex. I enjoyed them at face value and then loved digging deeper trying to interpret them. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was great.
Thanks to #NetGallery and ECW Press Audio for an audio copy of #TheWholeAnimal

This is an amazing collection of short stories each with their own individual, unique hook. I loved that each story was introspective and dealt with deep and dark elements that occur in life yet a lot of these are also quite funny. Every story was a hit for me which I find very rare in short story collections and I highly recommend this.

A standout debut collection of short stories! I may have to rethink my anti-short story stance because I've been reading so many great ones this year and The whole animal is among them with its poignant writing and relatable characters!

Usually I tend to find just one or two stories interesting in these sorts of collections but each one was both incredibly interesting and compelling and a few I was even sad to see end (definitely the mark of any good story in my opinion!).

My favorite story was "Kids in Kindergarten," about a woman dealing with a miscarriage and the societal taboos of feeling able to share your pain while also being supportive/happy for friends who are expecting/enjoying motherhood.

Great on audio too narrated by Laura Miyata. Corinna Chong is definitely a new Canadian author to watch and I'm excited for her upcoming novel, Bad land. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

DNF @ 39%

I’ve read plenty of literary fiction before, and this is not where it’s at. For me, these stories had a pervading feeling of emptiness that I don’t think was the intent. Each character was very samey: detached, awkward, petty, and passive. I read 5 of the 13 stories and each one ended with an unsatisfying clunk. (And I’m bewildered by a review I saw praising this!) Some of that could have been the audiobook narrator’s delivery, but I think it had more to do with narrative structure. Each of these stories definitely has a theme and some interesting images, but I couldn’t tell you the point or the viewpoint character’s internal resolution for any of them.

These short stories were quite introspective. It was wonderful. These characters were real, with real thoughts, struggles, faults.

Amazing job.

Thank you to Netgalley and ECW Press Audio, Bespeak Audio Editions for providing me with this audiobook!

I don't read a lot of short story collections, I find it hard to get in and out of stories so quickly but I thought this format would give me a different approach and it worked, probably thank's to a fantastic narration job done by Laura Miyata.
In spite of some varying themes and settings, the main focus remains a sometimes uncomfortable exploration of bodies and the loneliness of the human condition. It reminded me of Han Kang without the magical realism element. The writing is also very precise and the characters strong and discrete.
Although I'm sure that it was a choice by the author, I sometimes was surprised to realise that we'd moved on to the next story. It felt disconcerting and occasionally disappointing.

Overall really good!

I really enjoyed The Whole Animal by Corinna Chong! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Laura Miyata was great. I loved the Canadian settings and the female perspectives. I loved the Canadian references like Tim Hortons iced capp. My fave story was story nine which was about a teenage Chinese girl. That story reminded me of my childhood when it talked about trading snacks in school and the good snacks were Sodalicious and Gushers. In that story even a Vancouver t-shirt is mentioned and that’s my city! This is a great short story collection!

This collection was hard to rate. I did enjoy every single story despite their being varying in theme and style. Because the book is title The Whole Animal, I kept expecting there to be something that tied together all the disparities. I don’t necessarily mind that there was not, but with these being very fragmented vignettes, I think I would have appreciated their brevity more had they been interwoven here and there. Thank you to Arsenal Pulp Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

ARC audiobook provided in exchange for an honest review.

The narration matched up perfectly for the short stories in this book! I really enjoyed all of them and found myself wishing there was more story quite often! I felt like right when I started getting comfortable with the characters and setting, it would end and a new one would begin. I’m sure it was done this way on purpose, I just felt like some were only half a story and finished right when I was fully invested and wanted more. If you like reading short stories that are well written and touch on heavy subjects, you should check out this audiobook!

I could have devoured double of this!

The closest parallel I can draw is 'Salt Slow' by Julia Armfield, yet, as self-reflective as it might be, 'The Whole Animal' by Corinna Chong really defies comparison.

Chong, with an inviting, moreish style, interrogates the inter-relatedness of living forms and where they find their edges (on that note - what a cover!).

It's staggering, the way the author populates this collection with discrete characters each with as robust and echoing a voice as the next.

Further to this, Chong engenders the confined space of each short story with a miraculous kind of tension. There's a tugging and a counter-force between characters and the situations in which they find themselves. And this is so pleasing: it propels the reader through each episode and into the next, fixing and fusing the collection as an entity, which becomes, itself, the titular 'whole'; the 'animal', the collection as a unified body of work.

And more: Laura Miyata's vigorous and nimble vocal performance in the audiobook quickens these off-centre characters constructed by Chong. Miyata's narration eased my inhabitancy of each of these; she's a vocal talent I'll be looking out for in the future, and I'm going straight away to locate a copy of Chong's novel, 'Belinda's Rings'.

'The Whole Animal' audiobook is released in the UK at the end of the month by the Canadian Indie publisher EWC. One to watch, and I'll certainly be anticipating more of their releases.

Deep thanks to EWC Press Audio for the opportunity to review the audiobook format of 'The Whole Animal'.

This short story collection reminded me of a tapestry. Carefully woven threads that come together to form an elegant picture. Perfectly paced and neatly written, I can't recommend it enough.

A short story collection that is visceral, unsettling, and quirky at times. This reminded me of Mark Had don’s The Pier and The Strange Things We Become by Eric LaRocca. The overall book is plot heavy, but the characters are well rounded—not always an easy task with short stories!

The audiobook is well done, however I think this is a book that would be better read. And can we talk about the cover? It really is perfect for the content of the book.

Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC audiobook.

A really great collection of short stories! It was very haunting and human. Like none of the stories are extraordinary, but they're all very raw and lurking. The collection is full of growth, shame, confusion, irony, and quiet revelations, and I'm very excited to have had the chance to learn about this author! I want to know everything about the Corinna Chong and about what she has written aside from this. Also, I found it interesting that despite its darkness as a whole the book still feels somehow hopeful. I do think I would prefer this in a written format since there are so many point of views in the book, it felt odd that they were narrated all by the same person.

Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Audio for the audio-ARC

This is a visceral and satisfying #BiteSizedBook of short stories. Ranging from quirky and sometimes odd to sweet and thought provoking, the stories manage to cover a range of topics and themes while still feeling cohesive. Every story manages to find some combination of dark humor that create unforgettable scenes. Once I started to play this collection I couldn’t stop, and even went back a few times, because I was so thrown the first time (in a good way). The character development is impressive in such short stories, and while plot dominates, I found myself going back to the characters over and over.

Chong weaves experiences of Canadian’s of Asian heritage throughout a number of the stories, but it is not the overall thread. Instead the tread seems to be the connection we find and lose with people, and the intricacies of bodies. Bodies lived in, bodies consumed, bodies killed…

I highly recommend this collection in either the written or the audio format.

I love a weird and wonderful short story collection, and this was no exception. I really enjoyed every story in this book, and found some to be even more chilling than others in their ability to make my skin crawl.

This is definitely a book I’d love to add to my shelves as a physical book to keep and re read!

I listened to this gem of an audiobook while walking a 5K this past weekend, and the combined breezy weather and soothing stories were a calming way to spend my Saturday morning. I am so thankful to NetGalley and Corinna Chong for granting me advanced audiobook access to this delightful collection of stories. The Whole Animal is set to hit shelves on May 30th and I can't wait to spread the hype.

3.5 stars
When I read this book's description I was really intrigued. A collection of short stories that explores the body sounded interesting. I was even more interested in I read that one of the stories was about a linguistics professor (like me). But, in the end I couldn't see the theme of 'human and animal body' as a throughline across the stories in this book. In some stories like the one about the girl and the guinea pig you can clearly see the "animal body", but in some stories like the last one you can't see a connection - is the physical presence of a body description enough to say it address human bodies?

I think this book only improves as it progresses, the best short story is certainly the last one about a failed date and how your view in life changes once you find "the right one". While I was excited to read a story about a linguistics professor, this one is a bit superficial and it seems a bit unfinished for me. There are a couple of stories that I wish I could know more about the characters (what happened to them before this event? how did this unfold?) but I guess this shows how interesting the characters are.