Ruth Emmie Lang

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstances - R.Lang
Audio recording by multiple performers
4 stars

I’m not sure I understand the meaning of the book’s title. I would have called this book, The Life and Times of Weylyn Grey. It’s true that Weylyn was raised by wolves for a significant part of his childhood. He also has an amazing ability to communicate with all kinds of animals, including his pet pig, mice, squirrels, raccoons, and all kinds of insects. And the wolves. Unfortunately, he isn’t very good at getting along with other people.

There’s that thing with the weather; unexplained blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes that miraculously disperse, and rain that avoids the hole in the roof. Also the abnormally rapid growth of plants from spring flowers to entire forests. Weylyn Grey is very unusual.

Weylyn is unfailingly cheerful, but also frequently isolated from his own species. He has a lonely existence. The story is told by a variety of characters who encounter Weylyn from his middle childhood through late adulthood. He forms attachments to other quirky characters, but as disasters tend to follow him, he rarely stays long in one place. He moves on, but he also returns. He especially returns to Mary.

This was a sweet story, but it was never cloying. I enjoyed the changing perspectives of the narrators who gave different impressions of Weylyn Gray. I like that the story returned to early characters as they aged. The audiobook worked perfectly with a variety of performers. I’d recommend this one to anyone who liked Remarkably Bright Creatures and The House in the Cerulean Sea.… (altro)