Review: The Accidental Veterinarian by Philipp Schott

I love my cats (as you will see in this post) but I never dreamed (as lots of kids do) of being a veterinarian, and I've never really been interested in the profession (or any medical profession, for that matter). Even so, Philipp Schott's The Accidental Veterinarian hooked me pretty much immediately and kept me laughing throughout. It is a fun, humorous and fascinating peek into the veterinarian profession, told by a thoughtful and quirky veterinarian.

The Accidental Veterinarian is written as a series of short essays of insights into the chaos and reality of the job. It includes entertaining advice on how best to take care of your animals (such as how to "pill the cat"), essays about Schott's personal journey into veterinary medicine, and (the best part) fun, silly stories from his years practicing. Including the time he treated an ostrich, and the time he treated a lionfish.

The Accidental Veterinarian is an incredibly fun, absolutely hilarious read that I think anyone would enjoy, not just animal lovers. I was laughing out loud after the first few pages, and didn't stop until the end. Philipp Schott is a lovable and humorous narrator, and his character shows through in his writing. I mean, I knew I was going to love this book when only a couple of chapters in Schott spends an entire chapter comparing the veterinary medicine building at the University of Saskatchewan to Hogwarts and states that "Manitoba is clearly Hufflepuff."

I also loved that while there are tons of silly, extreme and hilarious stories for your enjoyment, Schott also touches on the realities of being a vet and some of the hardships of the job. Some of his essays touch on having to put down animals on a regular basis and play grief counselor to many, many people, or the impact of the stresses of the job itself and the problem of suicide in the profession. It really demonstrates the thoughtful side of his character when he consistently points out that people are just as important a part of the job as the animals.

In any case, The Accidental Veterinarian is a quick, enjoyable read that gives a tremendously interesting glimpse into the life and trials of a veterinarian that I really think anyone would enjoy.

 ***

And bonus quote:

"But all that said, the love of animals is still at the heart of things. I often think of a card we got many years ago from a young child who boldly wrote, 'I want to be a vat!' Yes, I too once aspired to be a large container, but I became an animal doctor instead, and I have never regretted that decision."

The Accidental Veterinarian comes out in April 2019! Click one of the links below to add it to your list or pre-order.

Find it on
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Review: Whenever You're Ready by Shawn DeSouza-Coelho

I am not a huge theatre nerd. In school I loved watching the musicals that my friends were in, but I never had any desire to get more involved than that one time I volunteered to do stage crew work. Then during the first show I forgot to move a prop off so the cast could do their dance properly, and that was it for my stage career.

However, Whenever You're Ready made me want to immediately move to Stratford, buy a lifetime membership to the Stratford Festival, and start working towards my new career in the theatre.

Whenever You're Ready is a biography of stage manager Nora Polley, who worked for 52 years at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. It's hailed as one of the only stage manager biographies around, and I'm sure people who know way more about Canadian theatre than me would devour it. But I enjoyed it immensely and I hadn't even heard of most of the people mentioned in this book (which I sorely regret now; they all sound like fascinating people).

Whenever You're Ready is a unique biography, in that it's actually written in first person, as if Nora Polley herself wrote it even though the authorship credit is given to Shawn DeSouza-Coelho. If you believe the afterword that everything is true to Nora Polley's experiences, it has the effect of a beautiful, immersive dive into Nora Polley's life, character, and career.

And what a career. Whenever You're Ready covers her first foray into the festival, to what she gets up to after her retirement with an amazing collection of fascinating theatre stories and the trials and tribulations of stage management in between.

While Whenever You're Ready is the biography of a stage manager, and it does contain many stage management anecdotes and things Nora learned along the way, it also profiles many other theatre people; actors, artistic directors, and other people involved in the theatre scene. Nora Polley's character shows through in the way she describes the people she worked with; her admiration for them and their work shines, and makes you wish you knew these people as she did. But you do get a glimpse of these incredibly unique, creative people as you read about her own career. In her first person biography, Nora Polley shines through as someone humble and hardworking, but also someone imperfect, human, and often unsure of her next step.

In any case, Whenever You're Ready paints a fascinating picture of an era in Canadian theatre, one filled with entertaining anecdotes, fascinating people, and one rock of a stage manager there to witness and work through it all. I think anyone who enjoys interesting life stories and has even just a passing interest in theatre should pick this up.

Whenever You're Ready on ECW Press
Whenever You're Ready on Amazon.com
Whenever You're Ready on Amazon.ca
Whenever You're Ready on Goodreads

Review: Nobody Cares by Anne T. Donahue

On the back page of Nobody Cares is the catch phrase "Just a girl, standing in front of  a reader, reminding them they aren't alone." That line pretty much sums up the feeling of the book: a simple book of relatable personal essays.

Nobody Cares is based off Anne T. Donahue's online newsletter of the same name, and you can definitely feel that Donahue has an internet audience in mind throughout her book. While none of the personal essays really hit me hard, it was partly my own expectations, and I still enjoyed it enough to read the entire book fairly quickly. In some parts I did wish she dug a bit deeper, but I don't think that's what this book is trying to do.

The personal essays in Nobody Cares are light, short personal lessons that the author has learned over the course of her life. Basically each one is in the style of an inspirational online article. It's half advice column, half diary entry. They cover a variety of situations in Donahue's life, from friendship and dating to just things you learn growing up. A lot of her essays also focus on her personal experiences with anxiety, and learning that "nobody cares." Donahue's honest voice and ability to laugh at herself makes Nobody Cares an entertaining read.

I think this book would be a good gift book for anyone in your life, perhaps especially people who suffer from anxiety since a lot of Anne's personal essays focus on that. It was very much a feel-good book of essays. A good quick, easy read for a sunny day.

Nobody Cares on ECW Press
Nobody Cares on Amazon.ca
Nobody Cares on Amazon.com
Nobody Cares on Goodreads

Review: Land Mammals and Sea Creatures by Jen Neale

I really, really wanted to like this book. The opening scene of the whale beaching hooked me immediately. The description of it was gorgeous and spine-tingling.

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures is set in a small town on an island on the west coast of Canada. It follows Julie, who has just returned to town to take care of her mentally ill father, a veteran who suffers from PTSD. Things really start getting strange, though, when a whale ends up on the shore, a stranger comes to town, and animals start dying everywhere.

The description of animal life coming and going is by far the strength of this book. The uncanny deaths of various animals occur throughout, and the way that Neale is able to portray these gruesome scenes in vivid detail is amazing.

However, I just wasn’t in the right head space for the kind of message this book was trying to get across – it was just too sad and frankly, disgusting, for me to really enjoy. I realize that is the point and if you aren’t quite as sensitive a reader as me you might be awed by how Neale writes a perfect picture of a decaying town infested with the smell of whale rot, and then uses these natural pictures to attempt to say something about grief. For me, at the time I read it, it was just too much about death without really going anywhere beyond that, and I just want more hope in my books at the moment. However, perhaps for someone who needs to come to terms with letting go as Julie and her father do, it would be the book for them. 

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures comes out May 2018 from ECW Press. 

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ECW Press

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Review: Rose and Poe by Jack Todd

Rose and Poe is a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, from the point of view of Caliban and his mother.

Before I begin this review, I just want to say that I have never read the Tempest, or at least if I have I don’t remember reading it, so I can’t compare the adaptation or anything. For that, you’ll have to read it yourself (and The Tempest, I guess, if you aren't familiar with it). What I can do is tell you if it’s an enjoyable read, which it is.

The plot is fairly straightforward, about a sexual assault trial and trying to catch the actual perpetrator. It’s not a complex mystery case or anything like that, as the plot is mostly a backdrop for the characters and the setting, which are Todd’s strengths in this book. Rose and Poe are based on Caliban and his mother from The Tempest, and my guess is they are background characters in that play. Todd does an excellent job of bringing them to the forefront, developing their characters and making the reader empathize with them. I think Rose’s love and protection for her son are what make it easy to side with her and Poe. The alternating perspectives also provide a more rounded picture of the characters and the events that take place.

Todd's other strength is his setting; he has a way of perfectly describing the scene, which also has the effect of setting the tone for various events. His descriptions of the storm that takes place in the middle of the book are spine-chilling.

One of my favourite things about Rose and Poe, however, is the slight sprinkle of magic that Todd writes in the book, from a speedy delivery “sprite” called Airmail, to Poe’s giant qualities, to a walking staff that seems to hold more power than an ordinary staff should. The magic seems both everyday and slightly out of place to the characters in this book, which makes the setting all the more intriguing. All in all it was just a fun, suspenseful read and I encourage you to pick it up.

Rose and Poe on ECW Press
Rose and Poe on Amazon.ca
Rose and Poe on Amazon.com

Review: The Dhow House by Jean McNeil

Jean McNeil is one of those authors that can bring clarity to the human experience in a single, illuminating sentence.

She is also exceptionally good at place in her books, which I first experienced when I read Ice Diaries last year, about her experience in the Antarctic. It was a slower book to get through, but the writing was so elegant and her absolutely beautiful twists of phrase brought life into the setting. If you're going to send a writer to Antarctica, you definitely want to send one who is good at writing place, and Jean McNeil definitely is.

Because I enjoyed Ice Diaries, I looked forward to digging into her newest novel, The Dhow House (which I acquired through ECW Press's Shelf Monkey program), which as you can tell already from the title, also centres around a place.

If you like action-packed stories full of plot twists and turns, then this is definitely not the book for you. The plot is very straightforward, takes a long time to get to anywhere that interesting, and even when it does the conflict quickly dissipates and the plot slows once again.

However, the plot really isn't the point of this book. It's really the writing, the experience of the place, and the reflections of the characters in that place. Her writing creates a certain atmosphere, which I'm sure she does very intentionally. Throughout the first half of the book, through the slowness and the deep, rich description I felt wary and slightly creeped out, and couldn't really put my finger on how exactly she was creating this effect. There is definitely a lot more going on in this book than at the surface, and you really have to pay attention for those moments where she drops a particularly striking sentence that makes you stop and go, Whoa.

I have a deep appreciation for writers like Jean McNeil who so obviously love the work of stringing together words to evoke deep meanings, which not all writers have talent for. While the plot plodded along sleepily, the place and characters were very much alive.

The Dhow House comes out in Canada April 11. There is also a Goodreads giveaway that ends on March 31 if you'd like to enter to get an ARC!

Find it on:
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ECW Press

3 Reasons to Read Boring Girls by Sara Taylor

METAL. MAYHEM. MURDER.
A visceral story of friendship, music, and bloody revenge 

Rachel feels like she doesn’t fit in - until she finds heavy metal and meets Fern, a kindred spirit. The two form their own band, but the metal scene turns out to be no different than the misogynist world they want to change. Violent encounters escalate, and the friends decide there’s only one way forward . . .

A bloodstained journey into the dark heart of the music industry, Boring Girls traces Rachel’s deadly coming of age, Fern at her side. As the madness deepens, their band’s success heightens, and their taste for revenge grows ravenous. (From ECW Press website) 

For anyone who knows me, you might be thinking, after reading that description of Boring Girls, "wait, she picked up that book and she liked it?" (You might also be thinking, wait, she picked up this book and wasn't scared by it? The answer to which is yes, of course I was.) But yes, I did like it, and here are some reasons why I think you should read it too!

1. THE PACKAGING To start with, the tagline, the cover, and the summary are great, and are all things that made me want to pick up the book in the first place. It just sounded really intense and interesting, never mind that I don't think I could ever bring myself to listen to heavy metal, and I'm not a huge fan of violence in the media I consume. But trust me, Boring Girls lives up to its packaging.

2. GIRLS! I know it's in the title, but this book is about girls - girls friendships, problems, issues, and challenges they face in a predominantly male industry. There wasn't a weird forced romance in it or anything. Actually, one of the reasons I liked this book was how authentic it felt to the real teenage girl experience - or at least my experience as a teenager. I mean, minus the metal and murder. Rachel was more concerned in high school with being taken seriously and finding a bond with other girls than dating, and I feel like that experience is often missing from the books I read, especially YA (although I wouldn't characterize Boring Girls as YA, even if the characters are teenagers). I honestly don't think it's realistic or constructive to have every female protagonist's story centered on getting a guy over everything else, especially female friendships. Anyway.

3. THE INTENSITY I was definitely never bored while reading it. While you know that Rachel and her friend are murderers from the beginning, that doesn't spoil the intensity or the anticipation leading up to the actual event. It was written well, and while there were a lot of descriptions of Rachel's band getting big rather than an actual build-up to the end, it was still interesting and a fascinating look at the life of musicians, female musicians in particular. And Sara Taylor definitely accomplishes the feat of making you sympathize with a murderer. By the end, you kind of feel like Rachel did the right thing.

Boring Girls is anything but boring, and I highly recommend you check it out! 

Boring Girls on ECW Press
Boring Girls on Amazon.ca
Boring Girls on Amazon.com
Boring Girls on Goodreads

CanLit Reviews: Across Canada by Story by Douglas Gibson

Across Canada by Story is written by Douglas Gibson, who is a former editor at a major Canadian publisher. Throughout his career he published many books by well known Canadian authors. Now he's stepped onto the other side of publishing to write books. His first book, Stories about Storytellers, is a memoir about some stories he knows about the famous authors he's worked with, which I have not read yet. 

Instead I skipped to his second book, Across Canada by Story. The summary gives the impression is about his tour across Canada putting on a show based on his book, but really it's a whole bunch of stories about Canadian authors and literary places across Canada."This book of mine," Douglas

Gibson writes in the section about author Hugh MacLennan, "I hope, will give you some sense of the importance, and the literary magic, of our geography." I think that line sums up the essence of the book pretty well. Across Canada by Story is all about drawing connections between Canadian places and the literary. 

However, it is definitely written for a very specific, very Canadian audience. If you're looking for an introduction to CanLit, this is definitely not the book. Gibson talks about the authors and events in his book as if you grew up hearing about these things, which I'm sure a lot of people have. Since I'm relatively new to the CanLit scene (and relatively young), I hadn't heard of a lot of the authors that he told stories about, so I think I lost some of the enjoyment of it as a result. 

But the writing is good, witty and upbeat, and the enthusiasm the author has for Canadian literature is evident. If you’ve heard of and know well the people and places he’s writing about, then I’m sure it makes a great, fun collection of little stories about beloved Canadian authors. If you haven’t, it’s obvious the Gibson isn’t catering to you. He doesn’t really go into much explanation and kind of assumes you know a lot about the CanLit literary scene, which I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that are knee-deep in that scene that would find this book delightful. It’s just because I wasn’t the target audience that I enjoyed it a little less, that’s all.

It has encouraged me to go and search out more CanLit though, because it’s made me realize how much I’ve been missing out on, even books that are considered classics in Canadian literature. While I did struggle to get through some parts of the book, thanks to mostly the organization of it (all the chapter section titles were at the beginning of the chapter, which made each section flow kind of awkwardly from one to the next), I did still enjoy some of the stories. I think my favourite story was about Will Ferguson (author of 419) working as a tour guide on PEI and pretending that he could speak Japanese.

The best part about this book, though, is how Douglas Gibson connects Canadian geography and places with not just Canadian books, but Canadian literary places such as indie bookstores, events, or even bookish people, like bookstore owners. He paints a picture of Canada and its literature that is rich with things to be discovered. If you’re passionate about Canadian literature and its history within Canada, and want to learn some quirky stories about your favourite Canadian authors to boot, I’d say definitely give this book a read. 

Also there is currently a giveaway for this book on Goodreads! If you'd like to try to win a copy, you can enter here.