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The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel
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The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel
Unavailable
The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel
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The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this ebook

“[A] beautifully crafted novel….A must-read not only for animal lovers, but for anyone who has found the courage to come back from heartbreak and find love again, without reservation, without fear.”
—Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants


“A marvelous page-turner, a story of an unexpected heartbreak and the unexpected blessings that result. I didn’t want to put this book down!”
— Ellen Baker, author of Keeping the House

 

“Wonderfully poignant characters and a deeply satisfying exploration of love in its many incarnations…make this novel Katrina Kittle’s most insightful yet.”
Lesley Kagen, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow River

 

From Katrina Kittle, the critically acclaimed author of The Kindness of Strangers, comes The Blessings of the Animals—a wry, engrossing, and moving story of a veterinarian’s journey through the aftermath of divorce amidst a motley crew of beasts.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateAug 3, 2010
ISBN9780062006790
Unavailable
The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel
Author

Katrina Kittle

Katrina Kittle is the author of Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, and The Kindness of Strangers, which received the Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Dayton, Ohio.

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Reviews for The Blessings of the Animals

Rating: 4.125000321428571 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Cami, a veterinarian, co-owns a veterinary hospital, works with the Humane Society in a volunteer position, maintains her own little farm of rescued animals, and her many friendships while being married and raising her 17 year old daughter. Her husband leaves her unexpectedly one day without notice or any prior relationship troubles or arguments. The book deals with the aftermath of how Cami and her daughter deal with their husband and father leaving. There are chapters interspersed throughout the book to give us the husband's perspective and the perspective of some other characters.I really enjoyed this book. I was interested in Cami's life just as much as I was interested in the descriptions of Cami's veterinary work and her interactions with animals. This was an easy, enjoyable read that I had a hard time putting down when I needed to go to sleep.Definitely recommended. I will probably be seeking out more of Katrina Kittle's work.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Not a fan of this one. I love the Kindness of strangers but I was annoyed at the random chapter by other characters throughout the book. I wanted to know more about them, but then it went back the main character and her thoughts.

    I was expecting much more. A decent read, but not one of my favorites by any stretch.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When her husband walks out on her, it is her work with animals that pulls her through the pain.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Veterinarian Cami Anderson has hit a rough patch. Stymied by her recent divorce, she wonders if there are secret ingredients to a happy, long-lasting marriage or if the entire institution is outdated and obsolete. Couples all around her are approaching important milestones. Her parents are preparing to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. Her brother and his partner find their marriage dreams legally blocked. Her former sister-in-law - still her best friend - is newly engaged. The youthfully exuberant romance of her teenage daughter is developing complications. And three separate men - including her ex-husband - are becoming entangled in Cami's messy post-marital love life. And as she struggles to come to terms with her own doubts amid this chaotic circus of relationships, Cami finds strange comfort in an unexpected confidant: an angry, unpredictable horse in her care.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Cam, a small-town veterinarian, is a strong dynamic woman. She runs her own clinic and rescues animals on the side. She is completely floored when her husband announces one morning that he is leaving her. Cam, tries to hold herself together in order to be strong for their daughter, Gabriel. Along the way she finds peace in caring for her collection of stray animals. Moonshot, a shy a skittish horse, comes to life under her ministrations, as they develop a unique bond.I really loved this book. The author created dynamic and interesting characters, who immediately pulled me into their story and suffering. I cheered for Cam through her victories and sympathized with her tragedies. I loved the message the author conveyed about marriage, and recommend it to anyone who is going through a rough patch. Overall, I thought this book was a home run. I enjoyed it so much that I am now going to check out the author's other books.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Veterinarian Camden Anderson gets a huge shock when her husband of 18 years ditches her to go find himself (that it is in the arms of another co-worker is typical). While her life is in chaos, those around her have their own issues to deal with, both happy and sad. Cami goes through the whole five step process in the course of the novel, as she tries to keep her head above water in her veterinary practice, and keep her relationship with her daughter on point. The universe keeps sending her animals to rescue. One of these, a horse named Moonshot, helps her through her time of trial.This sprawling book is a meandering stream, just like life. A great book for a summer read in a hammock, if you can get past descriptions of animal abuse that form key points in the story. The book is basically told from Cami's POV. The few chapters written in the POVs of other characters I found to be a distraction.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Satisfying. Heart-warming. Soulful. Katrina Kittle has written an engaging story that takes you on a journey of self-discovery. Cami Anderson must come to terms with the fact that her life has forever changed when her husband blind-sides her and abruptly leaves after eighteen years of marriage. Through the murky waters of betrayal, love, and the intricacies of relationships--humans as well as animals--Cami learns to navigate this new life she didn't ask for one step at a time. She finds solace in her work as a veterinarian, the rescue animals that she fosters, and the support of her family and girlfriends. Emergency GNO (girls night out) meetings help Cami keep things in perspective as she moves from disbelief, to anger, and ultimately a life of new beginnings. Along the way she takes note of her parent’s marriage and their upcoming fifty year anniversary party, of her daughter learning to navigate the ups and downs of young love, and of the difficulties that her brother and his partner face in trying to build their own life together. Cami asks herself some tough questions about love and marriage and commitment, the answers to which make her more determined than ever to live life honestly. More importantly though, is what she learns from the animals in her care. A three-legged cat, an impossible goat and an angry horse teach her more about trust, resilience and finding her true path than anything else can. Through them, her 'church' as she lovingly calls them, she reaches a place of peace and empowerment even though the future is uncertain and love has no guarantee of happily ever after. Where she was lost, now she is found. Who knew that deep heartache would become the springboard to unexpected happiness and hope for the future?Grab this book for your next Book Club selection, or read it for yourself girlfriends. The characters, barnyard or farmhouse, are as real and multi-faceted as you or I. You won’t be disappointed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cami Anderson is completely surprised when her husband of 18 years suddenly leaves her, their daughter, and their farm of many animals while she is called away on another Humane Society rescue. As a vet and parent of a high school senior, Cami is unprepared to deal with her confusion and outrage as her husband immediately moves in with one of her young vet techs. Cami, however, finds refuge in the relationships of her family, friends and assortment of farm animals who provide her solace and comfort in her despair. As Cami learns to move on and tries to define what she needs to be happy, she sorts through her relationships with other men and her family's attempts to reunite her with her ex-husband, all while trying to be a good parent, vet, and caretaker for the cast-off animals who inhabit her life and farm. I enjoyed reading about Cami's life but I thought there were a few too many characters that were intensely involved in Cami's life. I particularly enjoyed reading about her relationships with her animals and her animal rescue work. However, the difficulty Cami had in watching her ex-husband create his own self-perpetuating misery felt realistic and frustrating. I would recommend this story and will probably read more by this author.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Cami Anderson is a busy veterinarian who also volunteers for her local Humane Society on animal rescues. She has no idea her husband Bobby is unhappy until he walks out of their eighteen year marriage one day, leaving her with a barn full of animals in need and a teenage daughter devastated by her parent’s separation. Cami, the animal rescuer, has no idea that the animals who seem so needy will actually save her in the end. A horse named Moonshot, an unruly goat named Muriel, and a three legged cat named Gerald stole my heart in this beautiful novel about moving forward through life’s challenges.Katrina Kittle introduces the reader to a warm, quirky, and lovable cast of characters in The Blessings of the Animals. I loved Cami – a self-assured, middle-aged woman who must re-think her life in the wake of divorce; a woman who turns to the animals in her care for comfort when she discovers that she can not do it all on her own. Her personal journey was one to which I related having traveled through divorce and found my happiness again at the age of forty.The novel takes on the issues of divorce and its impact on children, the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of loss, friendship, gay marriage and adoption, and animal abuse and neglect. For those of you, like me, who have a hard time reading about abused animals…don’t worry – Kittle handles this subject deftly and with sensitivity and shows the positive side of animal rescue. I loved the spunky goat Muriel, whose dog-like qualities and lively spirit made me want to run out immediately and get a goat!Kittle’s prose is seamless. The pages of this novel almost turn themselves. I was carried away into Cami’s world effortlessly. At times, I forgot I was reading a book and felt like the characters were real people. Any writer who can do that gets high praise from me. Kittle is the author of three previous novels which I will absolutely be picking up in the future.Readers who love animals and great characters will be captivated by The Blessings of the Animals.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I picked this book up at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. I was puttering around during a layover when this book caught my eye and pulled me into a bookstore.Of course, put a horse on the cover of any book and I will run to it like a moth to a flame, but I considered this a feat considering the state of mind I was in. I was a complete wreck from the events I had just experienced in the past 24 hours. To come across something that was able to pull me away from my thoughts for a mere millisecond was to be considered, well, a blessing (no pun intended).(I must admit though that I rolled my eyes when I first read the summary on the back. Divorcee? Teenage daughter? An unruly horse? That's the same exact plot of the god-awful Sara Gruen novel piece-of-trash horse romance that I just got through--Riding Lessons. Sara Gruen was even quoted on the back. But in my state of mind, I didn't feel like I had anything more to lose, so I bought it. Sad, eh?)I read this 400 page novel in 2 days. An impossible feat for the self-declared slowest reader in the world. This was not a Sara Gruen horse romance. This was a tear-jerking novel with unforgettable characters and lessons that will stick with you until the grave.I'm a little hesitant of giving a 2010-published airport-bookstore-find a 5 star review, but this novel had a profound effect on my life. And I say this with confidence only a few days after turning the last page. Katrina Kittle understands relationships. And she understands the keys to happiness. Those keys lie within. You will never approach a relationship in the same way ever again.I couldn't have read this novel at a more appropriate time. It completely cured me of the dark spiral that I entered just prior to picking it up. As far as I know, I could have still been in that spiral to this day, and in the coming weeks ahead. But now, I haven't felt this healthy in ages.Thank you Katrina.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My sister is a vet. My brother-in-law is a vet. We have more than the usual number of vet friends. We are surrounded by vets and by the animals who need them. There's something of a mystique about their jobs despite the fact that my sister says 90% of being a vet is about "ears and rears." Two good reasons I could never have been a vet myself. Well, that and the whole biology class thing. But if I can't be a vet in real life, I still have a real affinity for vet stories and an even greater affinity for stories that include animals. Kittle's latest novel after Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, and The Kindness of Strangers, deftly handles both while closely entwined with issues of love and marriage and the definition of a successful relationship. Cami Anderson is a successful vet who volunteers for animal rescues. She and her husband have hit a rough patch in their marriage but Cami is shocked when she comes home from a particularly emotionally grueling rescue to find that Bobby is leaving her. That her admittedly stagnant marriage is over completely blindsides her and is especially painful as the true reality of their estrangement comes to light. While she grieves the loss of her own marriage, she watches her parents celebrate their fiftieth anniversary, watches her soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law plan the extravagant wedding she thought would never come, and watches her brother and his partner fight to adopt a baby into a relationship that can't be legally recognized. Into the mix, her almost grown daughter is having her own relationship troubles, spurred on by the collapse of her parents' marriage. And Cami herself is skittish about starting a new relationship either with her best friend or with a like-minded stranger. Equally weighted with the human drama in the novel are the cases that Cami sees in her clinic and on rescues. She knows that she can always rely on animals to ground her and to offer her unconditional love and trust, even when they have been so abused that they are broken almost beyond repair. In healing the desperate animals, she will perhaps learn to heal herself and open her heart to chance, even knowing that not every man will be worthy of that chance. Cami finds her peace with her animals, learns to let go (both in actuality and emotionally), takes a chance, and appreciates the beauty of being happy in the present. A quick and engaging read, this novel not only focuses on marriage and the questions that a commitment of that magnitude can raise but also on happiness and finding fulfillment in life, chasing the things that are important and recognizing that just because something is familiar, it isn't necessarily the right or best thing. The characters, both large and small, are engaging and diverse, all adding important puzzle pieces to the whole of the book. And Cami, as the main character, shows significant, satisfying growth. The storyline was appealing, unpredictable but fitting. The pacing was quite good, never rushed and never drawn out. The themes are serious and yet leavened with humor. Animal lovers will relate to the story and Cami. Book clubs will love this offering, giving just enough to discuss but also enough for members to relate to in their own lives as well. I finished it with a smile and a warm spot in my heart for Cami and her animals. Sensitive readers will want to know that there are horrific descriptions of animal abuse contained within but these are never gratuitous and serve to highlight not only the terrible things people do to our fellow creature but also to show how even the most ill-used can be rehabilitated and learn to trust and love again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When Cami Anderson, a successful veterinarian, discovers that her husband is leaving her, her carefully balanced world begins to fall apart. Though her husband has been moody and distant for a long while, his abandonment has come as a complete surprise to her. Between the layers of disappointment and sadness, Cami has other things to deal with. Her brother and his life partner are mired in an attempt to adopt a baby of their own, her sister-in-law is planning her long anticipated and elaborate wedding, and her teenage daughter is having romance troubles that seem to stem from her parents' separation. As Cami navigates all of these difficult situations, she begins to ask herself some fundamental questions about marriage and relationships, a situation that is further confused and complicated by the three men who are newly vying for her attention. Meanwhile, Cami ministers to the animals who need her help and comes to rely on the peace and comfort that they bring her, knowing that they are helping her just as much as she is helping them. Both thought provoking and compulsively readable, The Blessings of the Animals is a wonderful work of women's fiction that will not only entertain, but one that will make you think about the relationships in your life as well.I am fast becoming a lover of women's fiction. Though I have only sampled a few offerings, I am really surprised and pleased to discover how much I enjoy it. Maybe it's just the point of life I'm at, but I find it really interesting to read about women who are at some of the same stages I am, and have found out that if the story is written engagingly enough, I find lots to admire about these types of books. I don't think I'd like a steady diet of them, but they kind of fill the space in my life left by chick-lit, which I was much enamored of in my twenties. When I need something a little distracting and personal, I head towards these types of reads. They also make really nice beach or poolside reads, and while you can't really call them high literature, they do have an attraction all their own.One of the things I think I liked best about this book was the split focus between Cami's situation and her treatment of the animals. The animal sections weren't just a plot highlight. Instead they provided a lot of drama and pathos in their own right and seemed to balance out the more personal of Cami's dramas very nicely. Part of the book deals with Cami's volunteer work with the humane society. She would sometimes go out to investigate claims of animal abuse or overpopulation, and invariably, after doing her work, another animal would follow her home to the huge farm she lives on. The animals surrounding Cami were not only therapeutic to her, they all had personalities in their own right. Some of the animal rescues were very sad and I think in this portrayal, Kittle was doing her own work of educating a bit about some of the terrible things that people could do to animals. Most of these stories had a happy ending but I think it was very clever for Kittle to highlight the little talked about issues of abused animals.This book was paced very tightly and I noticed this story was not overly detailed in its discussion of things that were not integral to the plot. This made everything seem like it moved along at a pretty exciting speed and kept me flipping pages quickly. I think this story could have really been bogged down had it been written a little differently but Kittle has a great command of both her subject and her characters, and because of that I became invested in rather quickly. Certain chapters are narrated by other characters in the book, and while this certainly doesn't work in most cases, in this book I felt it kept things fresh and was well done. There was a great mix of comedy in this story as well, which was very unexpected but welcome. It's not often that a book dealing with such serious issues can make you laugh, but this one did. I really identified with Cami's perspective and that was one of the things that enabled me to really get close to her. Both the quality of her characters and the life in the writing of this book made it irresistible to me.The main theme I saw running through this book were some of the questions that most women ask themselves at some point. Is marriage ever really necessary? Is it better to be alone and not have to compromise your life, or to have a sub-par marriage in order to meet the status quo? These are questions that pepper the narrative and are taken on by almost all of the characters in these pages. They are all living different lives and in very different relationships, but these issues are things that pertain to all of them. When is it okay to give up a dream that's not working? What level of compromise is acceptable in a relationship between partners? I think Kittle does a wonderful job making these questions relevant both to her readers and in her characters' lives. There are many examples of relationships and marriage in this book, both of the healthy and not so healthy variety, and I think it's interesting to think about which relationship would speak to each individual reader. I liked that there wasn't a lot of judgement in this book. Kittle seems to be saying that people are different and what works for one wouldn't necessarily work for another. It was a really mature viewpoint to champion and one that made a lot of sense.I also liked that things didn't feel predictable in this book. It wasn't a book where you could spot the plot points coming a mile away, which I think can be a pitfall in this genre. Things were always unexpected and it all felt original. Even the ending wasn't tied up in a nice pretty package, leaving me to speculate on just what happened to the characters once this story was over. I think giving the reader all the information is sometimes a simple solution. It's far more complex to leave things just so and force your reader to think and make their own conclusions, which Kittle does beautifully.I thoroughly enjoyed this book and finished it rather quickly. I think it's one of the better examples of the genre and that it would be a winner for lots of different types of readers. If you enjoy women's fiction, I would definitely steer you towards this book. I also think if books about animals appeal to you, you'd love it. It would make a great summer read as well. I am really anxious to read another of Kittle's books, and I have heard the The Kindness of Strangers is a great place to move on to next. It was a really fun book to spend some time with, recommended!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    From My Blog...The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle is a beautiful woven tapestry of the many facets of love. Dr. Cami Anderson is a wife, mother, Veterinarian and a volunteer for the Humane Society. Cami believes her life is going fairly well until the morning she arrives home with a rescued horse and her husband Bobby announces he is leaving her and their 17-year-old daughter Gabriel. While the story is primarily told through Cami, the reader does get a glimpse into the lives of other narrators. Kittle does a brilliant job illustrating how love, marriage and commitment can indeed have many different definitions; it is all in the perspective. Cami’s parents are about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, her brother Davy and his partner Dave are trying to adopt, her best friend Helen appears to have a solid relationship with Hank, Olive is finally engaged to Nick, and finally Gabriella is trying to not only understand what is happening between her parents but is also struggling with her relationship with Tyler. Kittle’s characters are well defined, descriptive, easy to understand, care about (most of them) and relate with. The story lines are woven together, much as life is to form a rich narrative punctuated by the unconditional love animals are able to provide and the lessons they teach us, especially what Moonshot imparts to Cami. This is truly one of the most moving books I have read recently and I will be making certain every woman I know receives a copy; the novel is remarkable. The Blessings of the Animals is a beautiful and moving story of love, loss, forgiveness, and learning to move on. I would not hesitate to recommend The Blessings of the Animals to any reader but warn that Kleenex may at times be needed.