Life rarely takes us on journeys we're able to predict. Such is the case with protagonist Chase Jacobs in Mima's 2016 book, "We're All Animals", which follows the life of a small town boy-turned-man in Alberta, Canada, where he tries to control the steering wheel that is is life, yet frequently gets jammed into the ruts in the road that steer him to places he hadn't anticipated.
Mima does a good job at jarring the readers out of their complacency, regularly throwing curveballs where they're not expected, and like a yoyo, dips them into chillier waters that shocks them out their expectations. Small town life can certainly be boring. That is, until you peel the layers off, and find out things that are going on that make you say to yourself, "that couldn't happen here, though." Except, it can.
Small town life in Hennessy, Alberta is projected as typically drab on the surface, and as Mima walks you around the locales there, you don't realize she's looping her lasso around you slowly as she prepares to jerk you in directions you don't anticipate. Taboo subjects like the underground porn industry and sex parties dot the landscape between Hennessy and Calgary in her story, where she dares introduce multiple minority characters in a typically conservative region of Canada. The earlier section of the story lightly paints the background of the lives of Chase and his small circle of friends that shape the foundation for what becomes a kind of story of Murphy's Law, where our would-be boxer hero is confronted with life choices that seem to resemble no-win situations. But what Mima is trying to convey here, is that life in general is a no-win situation, and you have to accept the hand you're dealt and make the best of it.
Ultimately, we're all slaves to our own primal urges, especially in our youth, and Mima frequently challenges her readers with the fact that none of us has it easy, and that our animalistic instincts, for better or worse, wind up forcing us to make decisions on the fly. To question your own moral behavior isn't the point as much as to accept it, and make the most of it.
By the time Chase leaves Hennessy and is Calgary bound, his sense of uneasiness about the move is somewhat calmed by a character named Jolene, who turns out to be the scene stealer in the story. Charming with a definite undercurrent of sexuality bubbling under, she somewhat mentors Chase into the role that will be his new life, with many shades of grey. By the time her brother Diego enters the picture towards the latter part of the story, the dice in the Yahtzee cup is shaken up even harder, and again makes you question the actions of our hero from earlier on.
The women in the book appear mainly reactive to events that take place, namely in the small town setting; whereas when it shifts to the city, things get darker and even more complicated. It's fun to watch Chase navigate his way through how to handle the women in his life, and whether or not he'll be the one in control of his own destiny. Maggie, his early love, is the toughest nut to crack, leaving you to wonder what her motives are until a rather big reveal about 2/3 of the way into the story. Her sister enters the picture to complicate matters, along with his questionable choices of employment. In fact, there are several 'big reveals' that upend your expectations of where you think the story is going.
Life is unpredictable, and truth is stranger than fiction... unless you allow fiction to be infiltrated by the truth itself, something that Mima deftly understands.
This is Good Gravy with some real spiciness added to it.
Pick up "We're All Animals" by Mima wherever you buy books such as Amazon, Chapters, etc.
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