This Animal Body - by Meredith Walters (Paperback)

About the Book

Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner sets out to discover a cure for her depression. Instead, she finds herself being mentored by a mysterious group of talking animals with ties to her forgotten past--an experience that, gradually and sometimes painfully, reveals to her the magic that's possible when you stop trying to grow out of your imperfections and start learning to grow into them.

Book Synopsis

Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.

But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.

While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain, they do know things she doesn't--poems, scientific facts, and what happened in the forgotten years before her adoption. Frankie can't dismiss her conversations with these animals as mere dreams, but she also can't accept them as real. To prove she's still sane, she investigates her past and defies the professor who heads her lab to conduct a series of scientific experiments to test just how much animals are capable of communicating. Just when Frankie uncovers the truth, she has to make an impossible choice: betray the animals she's fallen in love with--or give up her dream of neuroscience, her last chance at success, and everything she thought she knew.

This Animal Body is printed on FSC-certified paper from responsibly-managed, environmentally-sound sources.

Review Quotes

2024 Readers' Favorite Book Awards Gold Medal Winner in Fiction - Animals
2024 Living Now Book Awards Bronze Medalist in General Fiction
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in Coming of Age

"Sublimely complex characters drive this story that promotes empathy for all earthly creatures."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Seamlessly blending elements of fabulism and fantasy with a focus on science and mental health, Walters's story will appeal to readers interested in the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit, as well as our indelible connection to nature."
--BookLife Reviews

"This Animal Body is an interesting book told from a viewpoint that will pique the interest of the avid magical realism fan."
--Readers' Favorite, 5-star review

". . . a compelling narrative, offering profound insights to those seeking to unravel the complexities of the human experience."
--IndieReader

"If you've ever wondered what the cockroach who narrowly escaped your boot is thinking, if you've ever imagined what it feels like to run like a wolf, if you've ever questioned who you are--This Animal Body is a tale for you. Creative and thought-provoking, it might change the ways you relate to all animals, both human and nonhuman."
--Jenni Ogden, Sarton Women's Book Award-winner, Nautilus Book Award-winner, and author of A Drop in the Ocean

"Walters touches all the bases in this multi-layered story of a young woman searching for her birth mother and finding a devoted family of forest creatures eager to be her guides and mentors. A beautifully written depiction of Love as the underpinning of all life!"
--Susan Crawford, bestselling author of The Pocket Wife

"A unique story, imaginative, beautifully written, with characters so real I kept forgetting I hadn't met them in real life. Captivating from so many angles at once--a dramatic search for a birth mother, the plight of animals in a human world, the crush of depression on the human spirit, a searing choice between science and conscience. I couldn't put it down."
--Jude Berman, author of The Die

"Heartwarming, tender, and deeply insightful, This Animal Body is a compelling journey into the heart and soul of what it means to be human."
--Jen Braaksma, author of Amaranth

"Walters's creativity is boundless and leaves you full of wonder and joy at what is possible."
--Nate Summers, author of Primal