This was an absolutely beautiful debut. Insightful and thought-provoking, witty and unsettling, this is a stunning exploration of what it means to be human. I would definitely recommend this book.

Paula Cocozza has written a strange but compelling novel about relationships. In ‘How to Be Human’, she questions where the lines lie between sanity and obsession, love and infatuation, delusion and self-awareness. Beneath the surface of our intellect, sophistication and technology, we are still animals.
Mary lives alone in a house in East London which backs onto woods, land which other neighbours complain is a unpalatable wilderness of weeds, rubbish and foxes. To Mary, it is the countryside. One day she sees a fox in her garden and believes he has visited her, that the gifts he leaves her are his way of communicating with her. She interprets his movements and snuffles as communication to her, and so validates her belief he understands her as no-one else does. As her relationship with the fox grows, her interactions with other people – her ex-boyfriend Mark, her neighbours Eric and Michelle, her mother, her boss – begin to disintegrate. At the beginning she has some semblance that her friendship with the fox is not usual but she persuades herself that animal specialists do talk to animals so she is not alone in doing this. It is other people who do not understand him. She experiments with different names for the fox – Red, Sunset – but finally abandons this attempt to humanize him.
This is a strange novel, part-psychological thriller, part-study of how wild and domesticated live side-by-side, part-portrayal of emotional disturbance [Mary’s breakdown and Michelle’s post-natal depression]. It is a portrayal of Mary’s two relationships, both controlling, both involving elements of stalking, both where one partner overwhelms the other with claustrophobic caring. Except one relationship is between a man and a woman, the other between a woman and a fox. Events are told mostly from Mary’s point of view and partly from the fox’s, though I found the latter unsatisfactory, stilted and romanticized. Significantly, the fox’s viewpoint disappears towards the end. Some passages of description were too long for me, too indulgent of Mary’s inner world, pushing the boundaries of her madness into psychotic episodes, pushing the boundaries of veracity. It is a strange, unsettling novel, like nothing else I have read. The slow descent of Mary into her fox world is at first believable while being weird but gets stranger as the story progresses. The story did take a while to get going, I almost abandoned it twice. It is a long time before the first line - ‘There was a baby on the back step’ – is explained, so long that its significance is muted and not what I first expected it to be.
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Five months after Mark has left her, Mary still lives in a kind of bubble disconnected from the world around her. She goes to work and returns home, but somehow she is numb and dehumanized. When one evening a fox appears in her garden, she is mesmerized. The animal returns regularly and a bond between the two lonely beings slowly forms. The more Mary feels connected with the wild animal, the more hysterical her neighbours become. They want to kill the foxes, they feel threatened in their own homes and their nerves are on edge. When suddenly Mark shows up again to rescue Mary and to save their relationship, she has to make a decision.


"How to be human" - it seems to be contradictory to use the contact with a wild animal to illustrate what represents a human being. However, in Mary's case, the beast helps her to overcome her numbness, to rediscover feelings she once had and the innocence and unassuming attitude of the fox make her become a human again. She feels sympathy with the animal, especially when the whole world seems to be against it. Just like baby Flora she can approach the fox without hesitation and reservation.


The humans apart from Mary do not really make a good impression in the novel. Her neighbours Michelle and Eric are quite egoistic and only think about their habitat and needs. I am not sure if Michelle actually suffers from postpartum depression as mentioned in the novel, to me, she is rather a neurotic egoist. Eric in contrast, is weak, servant and obeys his wife without questioning her decisions. Mark does not play a major role, but the fact that after half a year he realises that life with his wife was better, does not really speak in his favour.


What I liked most were the fox's thoughts. The author got in his mind convincingly and portrayed his simple and natural character quite well. Considering all the beings, he is the human one, unobtrusive, decent and not demanding anything. Thus, he can help the lonesome and forlorn protagonist to find herself and her strengths again.

My husband laughed when I said I was reading a book about a woman who forms a relationship with a fox. Not because the concept is a little bonkers, but because he knows that I am pretty obsessed with foxes myself (especially ones that live in cities). I would probably give this book 4 stars but I know that if I wasn't so fascinated by the subject matter, it would really be a 3. I really liked the writer and would definitely read more of their work, but the story didn't really take me anywhere that interesting. That said, I could see this making a good indie film and if you love foxes, then you will love this story.

To be frank, I struggled with this book. I got to around the 10% mark without feeling any interest in it, and gave up. After reading a couple of other books I went back to it, read a little more, and still thought I'd not bother ... Third time was lucky though. The story had moved on to a point where Mary's creepy, manipulative boyfriend has re-appeared on the scene, trying to worm his way back into her life, and it held my attention more. Even so, overall it didn't grab me, and I'm puzzled why, because I feel it ought to have done.
The story unfolds from Mary's point of view, told in the third person but still seeing events through her eyes - and she doesn't feel like the most reliable of narrators. It's not clear at times whether things are actually happening or if Mary's imagining them, which left me a bit baffled.
At the same time, I think I took the story too literally - I saw a sad, lonely woman, possibly starved of human contact, indulfing in really bizarre behaviour - making friends with a fox in the way that some surround themselves with cats, deluding herself that the fox reciprocates her feelings and attachment, treating it as a pet or even a baby. She lets the fox into her house and cuddles up with it on a blanket - while my mind was yelling "Don't do that! Think of fleas, ticks, mange!". I had more sympathy for Mary's neighbours who saw the fox as a threat to their children and cat.

What a very strange book this is! On the one hand a serious attempt to describe a woman's unravelling after the break up of a five year relationship, on the other a really weird account of her relationship with a fox that visits her garden. I don't dispute that you can encourage foxes and other wildlife by feeding them or even just by showing that you mean them no harm and initially the storyline is plausible. However after some really slow parts the novel suddenly descends into farce and is quite uncomfortable to read.
I don't dispute the author's ability but I have to admit to skip reading parts, particularly the fox sections, in order to finish it.
My thanks to Netgalley for this copy but it wasn't for me.

A book that held my attention although I kept feeling it was going to go in a different direction to that which it actually took. The attraction of the the principal character to to the fox was slightly creepy though this may well have been the writer's intention

This is an amazing book. At first I didn't see where it was going. The heroine's state of mind is not immediately obvious until you hear about her chronic lateness at work, her broken relationship, her lack of friends or a social life, her half-emptied house and realise that she is clinically depressed but receiving no help or treatment. Her 'relationship' with a big urban dog fox in the woods behind her garden gradually grows until it reaches total obsession. The clever use of "fox language" interspersed with her own thoughts enables the reader to see how she interprets his actions in a human format. Indeed, at one point, I wondered if she was actually inventing things the fox did. Her other interaction is with her, equally malfunctioning, neighbours. Again, I wondered is some if the things that happened were purely in her imagination.
I am not sure that I made a final decision about the story but thoroughly enjoyed reading it and will certainly look out for more by this authors

This is a beautiful literary read, with themes of loneliness, domestic abuse, suburban relationships, and post-natal depression: beautiful because of the cursive prose, and poetic execution of the narrative.
This is an intriguing tale – at first I wondered if the fox was imaginary, however, the fox turns out to be very real, albeit a symbol or representation of various aspects of Mary’s life.

Mary has ended her relationship with her fiancé after his incessant jibes at her lack of desire to be a parent. Left deeply unsettled, with low self-esteem, and a sense of being cast adrift, Mary is struggling with everyday life and its humdrum pattern. Her home is her castle, and she enjoys being holed up inside of her shelter. It’s obvious that Mary is going through a period of bad mental health, not in the least when she finds comfort not only in her relationship with the fox who appears in her garden, but the surprising attachment to her neighbour’s baby Flora.

This book is most definitely about how to be human – to live in juxtaposition or harmony with nature, loneliness, and social expectations.

Every night for the last 6 months, I've been feeding a fox of my own, so this book felt pretty close to home! Mary and Michelle however, were not so familiar. The combination of them, Eric and Mark was unnerving throughout, and I never felt comfortable. I guess they didn't either, but the fox seemed to be having a nice time. This was such an original book, it's tricky to review. Perhaps if I tell you that I felt like I needed a long soak in the tub to wash it off me, that will give you an idea of the effect it had?

Mary's life is in pieces, professionally and personally, and then she sees a fox in her garden. She feels that the fox is communicating with her and over time this 'relationship' helps her to evaluate her life. This is an odd premise for a novel and it is an odd novel. I wasn't completely convinced enough to be swept along by the fiction.

How to Be Human by Paula Cocozza is an absorbing, lyrical and fascinating story. Lonely Mary returns from work to find a beautiful dog fox on her lawn. Thus begins a powerful relationship between the human and animal. The fox brings Mary gifts and they start communicating. Mary retreats into another world, separate from her bullying ex boyfriend and politically correct neighbours. The beautifully observed story draws the reader in. It is an astonishing debut novel.

This thought-provoking book reminded me of Matt Haig's work, in the best possible way - imaginative, inspired and full of insight! I will certainly be seeking out more of this author's work!

Thirty-four-year-old Mary Green is adrift after her long-term fiancé, Mark, moves out of their East London home. She works in university HR but hates her job and can never manage to show up to it on time. Though she and Mark broke up in part because she didn’t feel ready to commit to having children, she’s inordinately fond of the next-door neighbors’ baby, Flora. Most of all, she’s trying to reorient herself to the presence of a fox who slips in from the surrounding edgeland to visit her back garden each evening. He leaves presents: boxers, a glove, an egg, and – one disorienting evening – Flora herself, a live bundle on the back steps.

Whereas the neighbors are horrified at the thought of a fox infestation and ready to go on the attack if necessary, Mary is enraptured by this taste of wildness. Before long the novel is using almost erotic vocabulary to describe her encounters with ‘her’ fox; Mary even allows the neighbors and her ex to get the idea that she’s ‘seeing someone’ new. Yet even as Mary’s grasp on reality grows feebler, it’s easy to empathize with her delight at the unexpectedness of interspecies connection: “At the end of her garden she had found a friend. … His wildness was a gift. … He was an escape artist, she thought admiringly. Maybe he could free her too.”

I love this novel for what it has to say about trespass, ownership and belonging. Whose space is this, really, and where do our loyalties lie? Cocozza sets up such intriguing contradictions between the domestic and the savage, the humdrum and the unpredictable. The encounter with the Other is clarifying, even salvific, and allows Mary to finally make her way back to herself. There’s something gently magical about the way the perspective occasionally shifts to give the fox’s backstory and impressions as a neologism-rich stream (“Come fresh to stalk around the human Female with sly feet and rippety eyes. Spruckling toadsome”). Memorable lines abound, and a chapter set at the neighbors’ barbecue is brilliant, as are the final three chapters, in which Mary – like James Darke – holes up in her house in anticipation of a siege.

As much as this is about a summer of enchantment and literal brushes with urban wildlife, it’s also about women’s lives: loneliness, choices we make and patterns we get stuck in, and those unlooked-for experiences that might just liberate us. The character Mary is my near contemporary, so I could relate to her sense of being stuck personally and professionally, and also of feeling damned if you do, damned if you don’t regarding having children. “Some part of her was made for a bigger, wilder, freer life.” One of my favorite books of 2017 so far.

I’m not really sure how to describe this book, I found myself drawn in to the story really quickly.
The main character, Mary, has been abandoned by her bullying boyfriend, things at work have gone pear shaped and she is lonely and her life is rapidly unravelling. She lives in a suburban house, with a wild patch near the end of the garden, after seeing a bold fox on her lawn, she becomes obsessed with him, and she builds a sort of relationship with him, spending hours watching and trying to befriend him to the exclusion of everything else in her life.
You are never sure how much of her obsession is actually delusion, but he story is compelling, and I really wanted to find out what would happen, it’s rather a strange book, completely unlike the sort of thing I usually read, but I would recommend it based on the lovely lyrical passages about nature, and its rather eerie atmosphere.

Cocozza is an agile and astute writer. The plot is intriguing, sordid but magic, like a loose retelling of Bluebeard.
On the other side, her prose is beautiful, yes, but sometimes it became too stylized, too self-aware (the narrator, Mary, analyze every move she make); it would have been. stronger if Cocozza trust more in us, her readers.
There were clever images she achieve (the house -- Mary's body, Mark -- the uninvited penetration, the fox -- the lost and awaited phallus).
I liked it and I want to read more of her work. Thank you.

It doesn't happen often but I just wasn't able to engage with this story enough to finish the book. The damaged woman and her strange connection with a fox in her garden didn't grab me at all which is unfortunate. I found the writing style hard to enjoy, and the gimmick of writing from the perspective of a wild animal simply didn't save the story for me. I felt adrift in a lot of unnecessary fluff most of the time, so had to put this one aside.