It's very very well written, that's probably the one thing I truly liked about it.

The behaviour of the characters is incomprehensible to me. The utter egoism of Mary (the main character) is infuriating, and don't even get me started on her very questionable relationship with a wild fox and her attempts (or at least very commonplace fantasies) to abduct the neighbour's baby.
The neighbours themselves are not quite right either, but with post-natal depression going on at least that makes sense.
The narcissistic (do I need to clarify he was abusive too) ex-boyfriend was my "favourite".
Basically, apart from the fox himself, there is nothing in this book I could relate to. Don't get me wrong - I have two cats and I'm the first person to tell them I love them and kiss their snouts, but not... LIKE THAT.

What I found unique about the writing, apart from the generally pleasant style, is that mid-paragraph, the voice switches from the one of the narrator to the one of the fox. It's very disorientating, but also quite different and I sort of liked it.

You have to love an author who writes about topics that make your stomach turn, but in a way that you want to keep reading.

I hated almost everything that happened in this book, I wouldn't say I liked most of the characters either (actually, I think I hate them all), each paragraph was extremely dense with information. The book needed work to be read! And yet, I couldn't put it down.

The style of Joseph's writing makes the difficult topics even more abrasive, but it's beautiful writing in its own right.
I rarely have such a strong reaction to a book - to dislike every aspect of it and then, once done, appreciate the whole and rush to recommend it to others (with its many red flags).

I'm not a fan, usually, of books that torture the reader and make them push through. But because of books like THIS one, I have a very difficult time DNF-ing a book. Through more than half of this book I was preparing to abandon it and because I didn't, I now know it would've been a major loss in my literary journey, had I not finished it!

It's a book which I loved in the beginning and sort of enjoyed at the end, but I admit I had to push through about 3/4 of the way.

It's wonderfully whimsical if you don't pay too much attention/think too hard of how some of the main topics/themes are outlined. If you read with your brain off, you'd easily give it 5/5.

Alas, I did start thinking at some point and certain things stopped making sense or became a bit annoying/confusing/cumbersome to take in.

Anyways, as a first book, I find it a good effort and it could've earned and extra scoreb had the editors done a bit more thorough job with...well, editing.

I'll leave you with one of my fav quotes: "A painting. There's a depressed Dutchman who does countryside scenes and flowers and things. It's ugly, but I have to maintain the estates in Japan and modern art is a good investment". Yes, he is talking about van Gogh!

And my absolutely least fav quote (because exactly the opposite has always been true) : "although one could still do proper science with a magnet and some iron filings, it felt professional to have made something that looked like a mutated windmill. Science had to have some mystery, otherwise everyone would find out how simple it was". Author never spoke to an actual scientist, I guess...

There was little in the story of this book, I could connect with aside from the existential dread that humans are becoming unfit for this world. And yet, I truly enjoyed the book. The characters are vivid (albeit extremely annoying/unpleasant human beings to me), the plot moves rapidly enough and the resolution is the most believable one I've read in years, even if grim.
The language is plain, without being simple, which only matches nicely with the contemporary plot.