Barn 8

In a world where most of our POV characters overcome all odds to become ___ , Barn 8 forges a new path. Things are hard, characters are not feeling or doing well, we are forced to think about motivation and mental illness and hard choices. I walk away thinking I probably have a new perspective on things now, but whatever that is, it is still unsettled in my head.
There is a small little aside story with a chicken as the POV character, and that is another bit altogether. The book has humor, but it also has some real tragic stuff that we get to deal with.

Great book. Very funny, weird, and ridiculous. The story goes from all sorts of perspectives to the point where you almost feel like there really isn't a main character - there are just so many people to swap through and a lot of them are important. Chickens alone are a funny animal; Stealing a million chickens is even funnier. Very much a sort of “we gotta get the ol' team back together” sort of story, except you need hundreds of people to move this volume of chickens.

This story is well researched - evident by the list of acknowledgements in the back, but also just throughout the story itself. It creates such a well fleshed-out world, since you get perspectives from not just the investigators, but the farmers and others to happen along the edges of the story as well. Everyone has their own objective, the whole plan becomes more and more disorganized. The writer's style is unique, which sometimes I really enjoyed and others I thought was odd. Either way, it kept the story fresh throughout.

Chapters are incredibly short, which makes this a pretty fast read. I read the paperback version, which as it turns out, is shorter than the book actually appears to be: with short chapters, there were often pages who had tons of white space, as the new chapter would start on the next page. It was refreshing mentally to get through chapters so fast, but I couldn't help thinking about how they'd have saved paper by just starting the new chapter at the end of the last one. Minor complaint, but I kept thinking about it.

My biggest problem with this book was the beginning. I read this because I found it at the bookstore (apparently I'll buy almost anything with a bird on the cover, I had three in my hands that day and had to choose one), and the synopsis (which, on the book itself, is shorter than the goodreads synopsis) made me believe it was a funny heist story. It is, but the beginning of the book is so depressing. I was really looking forward to just... something funny after the past year, and the intro was just the opposite of that. I went from incredibly excited to start this book (I told several friends about it) to putting it down for some time. The biggest reason I picked it up again was, I'd happened to leave off at the introduction for the second character, so I was hoping I'd like her more. I did.

After things get going, though, the humor does pick up and the story you're expecting shines through. Many of the characters have rough and unhappy pasts, but after the way the first character's introduction goes, you're ready for anything. The first character becomes more enjoyable. Overall this was very fun, and I'd recommend it - but with a small notice about how the book starts.

Loved this book. I learned a lot about chickens, Ag, and animal rights in general. I liked the characters, and their collective penchant towards action in the face of ruthless insignificance. I loved Janey, and her split-self identity. All and all, really good.

Sadly, I thought I would enjoy this waaaay more than I did. I felt like the characters were so vaguely described I didn't really get to know any of them and I felt bludgeoned to death with “clever”. Isn't this clever? It's so clever! The author is so smart that you will never really get this!
And I did not get it. I wasn't on board with the heist, I didn't understand the extreme foreshadowing that sucked all of the tension out of the plot and I consistently felt like the chickens were safer where they were.
I read this in small chunks over a week and never had a problem setting it back down to read something else. In the beginning, I wanted to be Janey's biggest cheerleader. I loved the idea of two Janeys and imagining what the other, East Coast Janey, was doing. But then Janey just kind of falls into the background and falls flat. Feeling like it was tacked on, we get glimpses of the future of these characters via flashforwards.
Maybe this is a case of you have to be there? Maybe if I had a toe in the world of animal activism or a chicken best friend this would mean more to me.