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Animal Instinct
Fleishman Is in Trouble meets Big Swiss in this darkly humorous and tantalizing pandemic-ridden portrait of sex, divorce, and midlife, about a Brooklynite who frankensteins the perfect lover, from the critically acclaimed author of Unseen City.
It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein, mother of three, recent divorcee, and Brooklynite is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park bench dates with younger men, ongoing flirtations with beautiful women, and finally, actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.
But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs?
Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, or her children, or her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself.
Animal Instinct is at once a provocative tale of one woman’s burgeoning freedom, an indictment and celebration of our fraught relationship with technology, and a snapshot of life at its most fragile and most precious.
It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein, mother of three, recent divorcee, and Brooklynite is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park bench dates with younger men, ongoing flirtations with beautiful women, and finally, actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.
But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs?
Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, or her children, or her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself.
Animal Instinct is at once a provocative tale of one woman’s burgeoning freedom, an indictment and celebration of our fraught relationship with technology, and a snapshot of life at its most fragile and most precious.
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 18, 2025
About the author
Amy Shearn
7 books192 followersAmy Shearn is the author of the novels How Far Is the Ocean from Here, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and Unseen City.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 17, 2024
Rating: 4/5
Being a woman is hard. Add in a (not so great) husband and three (actually really great) kids, life gets difficult.
Rachel is a forty-something year old living in Brooklyn, figuring her life out in the middle of a divorce and a global pandemic. This novel highlights quiet feminine rage, believing in your own self worth, and the simple power of being a woman. Rachel is specifically relatable in the way you can connect to her loneliness and desires. She is witty and matter-of-fact about just how hard life can be. Her journey of self-discovery, being okay with the unknown, and figuring yourself out later in life is heartwarming and touching.
**Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC!**
Being a woman is hard. Add in a (not so great) husband and three (actually really great) kids, life gets difficult.
Rachel is a forty-something year old living in Brooklyn, figuring her life out in the middle of a divorce and a global pandemic. This novel highlights quiet feminine rage, believing in your own self worth, and the simple power of being a woman. Rachel is specifically relatable in the way you can connect to her loneliness and desires. She is witty and matter-of-fact about just how hard life can be. Her journey of self-discovery, being okay with the unknown, and figuring yourself out later in life is heartwarming and touching.
**Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC!**
August 24, 2024
Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to relive the pandemic through the eyes of our main character Rachel. She had a lot more fun than I did…
Rachel is in the process of getting divorced, from Josh her college boyfriend, who used to be funny, a feminist lover and all-around great guy. Somehow after kids, and life, Josh becomes the opposite, and Rachel decides she is better off alone. Her life in her Brooklyn apartment with so many friends in the same boat fuels her rage. Being in her declining marriage has left her wanting, and the thing she wants the most is sex. It is a tough call during the pandemic, but Rachel figures out a way to satisfy her itch.
The story really goes in to all the effort Rachel puts into her friends, her many sexual encounters, and keeping her children grounded during the lockdown. She practices a safe distance from her parents and sister but finds many ways to meet with her various sex partners. Does she grow from this experience? Is she a better ex-wife, mother? Does it improve her ability to create apps and bots? (she is an ace programmer).
Rachel does seem to find some peace at the end of the book, as she final hooks up with someone who feeds her soul. I certainly don’t want to ruin the book for other readers, and I am not discussing the fun ways that each of the sexual encounters are written.
The book is breezy, fun and an easy read. I see the author’s own life in this book and I can only imagine she had fun writing it. I hope she did all the research.
Rachel is in the process of getting divorced, from Josh her college boyfriend, who used to be funny, a feminist lover and all-around great guy. Somehow after kids, and life, Josh becomes the opposite, and Rachel decides she is better off alone. Her life in her Brooklyn apartment with so many friends in the same boat fuels her rage. Being in her declining marriage has left her wanting, and the thing she wants the most is sex. It is a tough call during the pandemic, but Rachel figures out a way to satisfy her itch.
The story really goes in to all the effort Rachel puts into her friends, her many sexual encounters, and keeping her children grounded during the lockdown. She practices a safe distance from her parents and sister but finds many ways to meet with her various sex partners. Does she grow from this experience? Is she a better ex-wife, mother? Does it improve her ability to create apps and bots? (she is an ace programmer).
Rachel does seem to find some peace at the end of the book, as she final hooks up with someone who feeds her soul. I certainly don’t want to ruin the book for other readers, and I am not discussing the fun ways that each of the sexual encounters are written.
The book is breezy, fun and an easy read. I see the author’s own life in this book and I can only imagine she had fun writing it. I hope she did all the research.
September 25, 2024
This novel has been percolating in my mind since I finished reading it a few days ago. Self discovery, coming of age, exploring your desires, and finding your true self are so often associated with narratives about young adults, as if the discoveries we arrive at by the time we graduate college or finish that Eurail trip with our friends marks the end of a journey. But the reality for me and so many women, as for Rachel, the protagonist of this incredible novel, is that self discovery often comes at midlife, when the milestone of partnership and parenthood and career all raise the stakes for change. Rarely have I seen a character empowered to process complicated emotions, have sexual experiences, and rebalance their approach to parenting in such a visceral, thoughtful, generous way, without shame or punishment. Set in the pandemic during which the merest human touch can mean the difference between life and death, Animal Instinct made me think about the complicated, dangerous, marvelous process of growing into our individuality as connected humans.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews