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Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife
What happens when the Manhattan zoo empties its cages?
John, part radicalised anarchist, part ticking time bomb,
is haunted by a particular story, that of Willow, a 9-year old mute who flees to New York after her brutal rape. The only way his girlfriend, Felicity, can stop the clock counting down is by disentangling the riddle of their pasts, before their entwined futures are blown to pieces.
Quentin Canterel’s second novel presents a collage of voices, dead and alive, in a unique and unnerving novel that experiments with form, structure and language.
Truly a mystery shrouded in an enigma.
John, part radicalised anarchist, part ticking time bomb,
is haunted by a particular story, that of Willow, a 9-year old mute who flees to New York after her brutal rape. The only way his girlfriend, Felicity, can stop the clock counting down is by disentangling the riddle of their pasts, before their entwined futures are blown to pieces.
Quentin Canterel’s second novel presents a collage of voices, dead and alive, in a unique and unnerving novel that experiments with form, structure and language.
Truly a mystery shrouded in an enigma.
262 pages, Paperback
Published October 7, 2016
217 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 19, 2016
Blurb:
What happens when the Manhattan zoo empties its cages?
John, part radicalized anarchist, part ticking time bomb, is haunted by a particular story, that of Willow, a 9-year old mute who flees to New York after her brutal rape. The only way his girlfriend, Felicity, can stop the clock counting down is by disentangling the riddle of their pasts , before their entwined futures are blown to pieces.
Quentin Canterel's second novel presents a collage of voices, dead and alive, in a unique and unnerving novel that experiments with form, structure and language. Truly a mystery shrouded in an enigma.
This is fiction, or is it? Sometimes its hard to tell. Author Quentin Canterel weaves a fancy basket of Americana in a partial folklore and partial love story romantic, with modern rom-com characters.
From what I can make of it, John is an angel who experienced his untimely passing at a young age. In doing so, left behind a manuscript called “The Guide”. His male roommate starts his narration by threatening to publish John’s guide via OUIJA board chat.
Our story includes two very distinct voices. One that is Willow, a nine year old girl in Georgia who lives with her grandfather. She is referred to as elective-ly mute, as it is understood that fear is the only thing that prevents her from communicating with her voice. Her grandfather spends his time woefully drinking and praying for her to one day use her voice.
In an attempt to explain the mysteries of life he shares with her whimsical characters of the forest. Some are relatively well known, like a Leprechaun, yet most often unheard of. Both she and he refer to them as the “Fearsome Creatures”, and a character named Broady draws Willow pictures to support the concoctions.
Charming in itself, this side of the book has a pleasant country tone, and the font that the author chooses for this part enables you to easily recognize the child's voice. Before too long you are enveloped in Willows life and your heartstrings are pulled this way and that.
Having lived in the south for some time, ( Texas, rather than Georgia), I can picture the scenes and “goings-on” quite clearly and rather than offer a spoiler to you I will say that there is a lot of heartfelt moments that get yer' eyes all teared up.
Then, in juxtaposition to Willow, we have John’s roommate and Felicity, his female counterpart tromping about in the big city with a (90's) gothy-emo type 3rd wheel relationship. John continually plays the dedicated swooning victim to entertain Felicity. As Zulficar (the narrator), witnesses to the cat and mouse touch ass moments of emotional fancy. John apparently has a “Romantic” ire that keeps his friends entertained and in doing so he is often the unwilling center of attention.
The three tend to spend a majority of their time repulsed by what they see around them. The city, clubs, fake people of the scenes they haunt, and in doing so there is a kind of non committal innocence that surrounds them. Yes, hearts get broken, and the moral is that ****** ****** **** …oh wait, I promised no spoilers. But I will say that in an archetypical since there are great parallels to “Dante’s Inferno” to the point that Felicity could easily be named Beatrice, and John, Dante.
Truly this was a pleasant reading experience with all kinds of personality and charming characters. I give it a 4 stars, but also mention to the reader not to try to take this lightly, as the contrast in story lines is easily missed and one could find themselves having to go back and review often for the sake of catching up. P.S. There are a lot of WTF moments.
This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank You!
What happens when the Manhattan zoo empties its cages?
John, part radicalized anarchist, part ticking time bomb, is haunted by a particular story, that of Willow, a 9-year old mute who flees to New York after her brutal rape. The only way his girlfriend, Felicity, can stop the clock counting down is by disentangling the riddle of their pasts , before their entwined futures are blown to pieces.
Quentin Canterel's second novel presents a collage of voices, dead and alive, in a unique and unnerving novel that experiments with form, structure and language. Truly a mystery shrouded in an enigma.
This is fiction, or is it? Sometimes its hard to tell. Author Quentin Canterel weaves a fancy basket of Americana in a partial folklore and partial love story romantic, with modern rom-com characters.
From what I can make of it, John is an angel who experienced his untimely passing at a young age. In doing so, left behind a manuscript called “The Guide”. His male roommate starts his narration by threatening to publish John’s guide via OUIJA board chat.
Our story includes two very distinct voices. One that is Willow, a nine year old girl in Georgia who lives with her grandfather. She is referred to as elective-ly mute, as it is understood that fear is the only thing that prevents her from communicating with her voice. Her grandfather spends his time woefully drinking and praying for her to one day use her voice.
In an attempt to explain the mysteries of life he shares with her whimsical characters of the forest. Some are relatively well known, like a Leprechaun, yet most often unheard of. Both she and he refer to them as the “Fearsome Creatures”, and a character named Broady draws Willow pictures to support the concoctions.
Charming in itself, this side of the book has a pleasant country tone, and the font that the author chooses for this part enables you to easily recognize the child's voice. Before too long you are enveloped in Willows life and your heartstrings are pulled this way and that.
Having lived in the south for some time, ( Texas, rather than Georgia), I can picture the scenes and “goings-on” quite clearly and rather than offer a spoiler to you I will say that there is a lot of heartfelt moments that get yer' eyes all teared up.
Then, in juxtaposition to Willow, we have John’s roommate and Felicity, his female counterpart tromping about in the big city with a (90's) gothy-emo type 3rd wheel relationship. John continually plays the dedicated swooning victim to entertain Felicity. As Zulficar (the narrator), witnesses to the cat and mouse touch ass moments of emotional fancy. John apparently has a “Romantic” ire that keeps his friends entertained and in doing so he is often the unwilling center of attention.
The three tend to spend a majority of their time repulsed by what they see around them. The city, clubs, fake people of the scenes they haunt, and in doing so there is a kind of non committal innocence that surrounds them. Yes, hearts get broken, and the moral is that ****** ****** **** …oh wait, I promised no spoilers. But I will say that in an archetypical since there are great parallels to “Dante’s Inferno” to the point that Felicity could easily be named Beatrice, and John, Dante.
Truly this was a pleasant reading experience with all kinds of personality and charming characters. I give it a 4 stars, but also mention to the reader not to try to take this lightly, as the contrast in story lines is easily missed and one could find themselves having to go back and review often for the sake of catching up. P.S. There are a lot of WTF moments.
This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank You!
July 17, 2019
Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife is no easy read, both for its contents (quite triggering) and its style (a lot of reviewers found it to be all over the place). Since I've read another book by Quentin Canterel, I can firmly say it's simply the author's quirky style, but if you get used to his storytelling, you will be able to enjoy it. However, I must start my review with the fact that this book is definitely not for everyone. But I enjoyed it.
Read the full review here:
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook through Story Cartel in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
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Read the full review here:
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook through Story Cartel in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
Read Post On My Blog | Themed Bookstagram | Quick Update Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
November 9, 2016
Another very strange book from this author but, as with his first, I liked it. There is something about the flow of the words that override the obscure literary and musical references. Even the passages written in languages I don't understand didn't seem to detract from my enjoyment of the book. Will I continue reading Canterel's work? I will if he continues to release more. (Just my opinion.)
December 14, 2016
Have to think about this one... I'm not reviewing it for anyone, just read it for myself. Very strange
July 1, 2018
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 1.0 of 5
Oh, dear.
I was only a few pages into this when the style seemed familiar and I looked back to see that I had previously reviewed the author's book, The Jolly Coroner. That had been a crazy book with a strange but enticing story and wrapped up in an unusual form. Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife promised more of the same and was evident right off the bat. But ultimately it failed to get past the unusual format to deliver the story.
I've been trying to figure out how best to sum up the story, and I think I have to go to Goodreads and share the description from there:
Had I read the description first I'm pretty sure I'd never have requested the book. Any book that mentions in the description that it "experiments with form, structure and language" is not likely something that will appeal to me (though I always hope I'm wrong on that).
I think that there is a story here but you have to work really hard to pull that story out from behind the form and structure and language to realize it, and I'm not really convinced it's worth it. I don't mind the work if there's a pay-off, but the pay-off here is too obscured.
This is just a technical thing and only a small part of my low rating, but the use of a variety of font styles to indicate different people writing hindered the process. Some handwriting-looking fonts were too small and I had to supersize the type to be able to read it, and then go back to return the font to my preferred 'normal' size for other parts of the book, and all of the handwriting-looking fonts were difficult to read which simply aggravated an already tough read.
I don't usually read other reviews until after I've written mine, but since I was quoting from the Goodreads description and noticed that there were only seven other reviews as I write this, I gave them a quick glance and I'm amused that one of the people who rated this book well (4 stars) starts the review with "From what I can make of it...".
Experiments are fine, but this experiment failed.
Looking for a good book? Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife by Quentin Canterel keeps the reader away from the story with the style of presentation.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Oh, dear.
I was only a few pages into this when the style seemed familiar and I looked back to see that I had previously reviewed the author's book, The Jolly Coroner. That had been a crazy book with a strange but enticing story and wrapped up in an unusual form. Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife promised more of the same and was evident right off the bat. But ultimately it failed to get past the unusual format to deliver the story.
I've been trying to figure out how best to sum up the story, and I think I have to go to Goodreads and share the description from there:
What happens when the Manhattan zoo empties its cages?
John, part radicalised anarchist, part ticking time bomb, is haunted by a particular story, that of Willow, a 9-year old mute who flees to New York after her brutal rape. The only way his girlfriend, Felicity, can stop the clock counting down is by disentangling the riddle of their pasts, before their entwined futures are blown to pieces.
Quentin Canterel’s second novel presents a collage of voices, dead and alive, in a unique and unnerving novel that experiments with form, structure and language.
Had I read the description first I'm pretty sure I'd never have requested the book. Any book that mentions in the description that it "experiments with form, structure and language" is not likely something that will appeal to me (though I always hope I'm wrong on that).
I think that there is a story here but you have to work really hard to pull that story out from behind the form and structure and language to realize it, and I'm not really convinced it's worth it. I don't mind the work if there's a pay-off, but the pay-off here is too obscured.
This is just a technical thing and only a small part of my low rating, but the use of a variety of font styles to indicate different people writing hindered the process. Some handwriting-looking fonts were too small and I had to supersize the type to be able to read it, and then go back to return the font to my preferred 'normal' size for other parts of the book, and all of the handwriting-looking fonts were difficult to read which simply aggravated an already tough read.
I don't usually read other reviews until after I've written mine, but since I was quoting from the Goodreads description and noticed that there were only seven other reviews as I write this, I gave them a quick glance and I'm amused that one of the people who rated this book well (4 stars) starts the review with "From what I can make of it...".
Experiments are fine, but this experiment failed.
Looking for a good book? Bunyan's Guide to the Great American Wildlife by Quentin Canterel keeps the reader away from the story with the style of presentation.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
December 19, 2017
For most of this book, I didn't really know what was going on, and I didn't really care. The characters were all basically the same person as none of them had a distinct personality. The worst part, though, is that the author included four separate sexual assaults, all of which were done purely for shock value and not because they did anything to further the plot or character development.
February 21, 2017
Having read Quentin Canterel's first book the Jolly Coroner I was keen to experience some more of his quirky writing style. I found that this book continued to surprise me with the subject matter and the writing style. However I do have to admit that I found it too hard to get into and didn't actually manage it. The different points of view and strange writing style were a step too far in my opinion and although some bits were fascinating I did have to give up.
However I would happily put it down to experience and see what his next book has to offer!
However I would happily put it down to experience and see what his next book has to offer!
February 4, 2017
I received a copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a resounding DNF
I really couldn't get behind the characters and I felt like I was stumbling around reading words, it was like hitting words in your predict text then reading over what you've typed ten minutes later to find that there's nothing but a bunch of words that say nothing and mean nothing to you. Or pick a word and repeat it a couple of dozen times then you'll notice that the word has lost all its meaning for a moment.
Unfortunately that's exactly how I got on here.
This was a resounding DNF
I really couldn't get behind the characters and I felt like I was stumbling around reading words, it was like hitting words in your predict text then reading over what you've typed ten minutes later to find that there's nothing but a bunch of words that say nothing and mean nothing to you. Or pick a word and repeat it a couple of dozen times then you'll notice that the word has lost all its meaning for a moment.
Unfortunately that's exactly how I got on here.
June 1, 2018
The reader looks back on what happened over the course of a few months in New York City with even further flashbacks and retellings. Opening on a spirit speaking through a Ouija board, recapping the tempestuous relationship between John and Felicity, with jumps into the childhood of Willow, a girl raised in the country by her grandfather. Quentin Canterel moves between the voices of the various characters throughout the book.
Quentin Canterel writes of many different characters with teasers to even more potential storylines. The book centers mainly on John and Felicity, but an abundance of other characters enter and exit throughout the narrative. I found the story hard to follow with so much jumping around, untranslated Latin quotes, and difficult to read font. I appreciated the different font to express different voices or writing, but I found the fine script font particularly hard to read. I was not captivated by the story and felt there were too many seemly irrelevant sub-plots that I fear I just missed the whole point.
Quentin Canterel writes of many different characters with teasers to even more potential storylines. The book centers mainly on John and Felicity, but an abundance of other characters enter and exit throughout the narrative. I found the story hard to follow with so much jumping around, untranslated Latin quotes, and difficult to read font. I appreciated the different font to express different voices or writing, but I found the fine script font particularly hard to read. I was not captivated by the story and felt there were too many seemly irrelevant sub-plots that I fear I just missed the whole point.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews