This book is kind of nuts; a virus spreads throughout Australia, causing people to lose a lot of their cognition and rational thought processes, and start understanding animals. It was a compulsive read, I flew through this. There is a tense and taut undertone throughout this novel which keeps you reading, and gives a sense of urgency. It takes a grim tone when the animals start talking, which is unexpected and adds to the overall sense of uncomfortable strangeness. The writing is really effective, and this atmosphere is very engrossing. However, I personally found the characters to be extremely one-dimnesional and quite stereotyped, particularly in the case of the main character. She is an older conversative white Australian, and I thought the author really leaned into lazy tropes when describing her to the reader, resulting overall in a character whose personal journey and story I was not at all invested in.

For fans of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.