This book was a mixed bag for me. I liked some parts of it, skimmed frequently, and cringed at times. It was well-written though and an interesting take on how the pandemic effected women and their relationships. It wasn't a particularly entertaining book and I didn't really find the characters likable, but it was a raw, sometimes thought-provoking read overall.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

This was interesting and not at the same time.

The story hits like a ton of bricks bringing the pandemic PTSD. It is focused on a divorcee that chose to separate from her husband right when the pandemic hit. The fact that she is alone, lonely, but also on an adventure to figure who she is sexually, as well as well not feel as lonely, felt like an engaging story, one I really wanted to love.

I felt so many feelings for this underappreciated, not loved wife/mother/woman. It was easy to understand where she comes from, and her want for something different after divorce. She wants fun, and touch, and care, and sometimes spanking. She wants to explore and learn, and enjoy, but at the same time not need to take care of the other person if she doesn't feel like it. If you've heard the saying a servant - well she won't be one anymore.

Her thoughts and needs felt familiar, but also something different from any of the other books I've read (probably why I chose to read it). It felt relatable, but also - what are you doing? It's like Rachel is putting herself out there to be reckless and dangerous, because she is numb and wants to feel something. Oh did I mention, while she is on this dating/having sex with random people during a pandemic, she is building her perfect AI person. So she can finally have someone who is completely what she needs/wants/expects. But it is never what you expect. Eventually she finds her answers to her lost-in-life questions.

I wanted this to be more about AI, and how it integrates into Rachel's adventure. But it felt like unnecessary detail, even if finally she understands why it will never work out with an imagined person. I wanted either something completely unhinged, or something scary happen. And I think the ending kind of wrapped it up too nicely for me. Life moves on, and so I guess will I, and won't remember this book in a week.

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy.

I related to the fmc so much, cause honestly AI can just do about anything now. I really enjoyed this book, and anyone who loves lit fic will also.

Animal Instinct is a clever, heartfelt novel that combines humor with deeper reflections on human and animal connection. The characters are relatable, and the storytelling balances warmth with sharp insights. A few moments feel a bit quirky or uneven, but overall, it’s an engaging read. Great for those who enjoy witty, emotionally nuanced fiction.

I really enjoyed this emotional, intense, immersive, pandemic divorce story. But what I loved most about it was that I really felt like it was more of an ode to female friendship than anything else. The narrative vividly took me back to those days of the early pandemic where we were all so penned in to our homes by myriad new rules and restrictions. Yet there was also a feeling of lawlessness and possibility and newness brewing. Amy Shearn did a very effective job of bringing all of this to life. I highlighted so many passages about the nature of marriage and love and what we all want in a romantic partner. She has a profound way of stating things that resonates and is startlingly relatable.Thank you for the opportunity to read an early copy of this novel. I look forward to reading anything that Shearn writes next.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a quick read with a great cast of characters. There were a lot of ways that I found the main character relatable, like losing yourself in marriage and motherhood, or the chaos and uncertainty of Covid. But, in the ways I couldn’t relate, like the post-divorce dating, the writing still had me very invested in her journey. I also found the perfect person chatbot aspect to be very timely, and the progression from creative outlet to unhealthy preoccupation was fascinating and a little concerning. Thank you to Putnam and NetGalley for the DRC in exchange for an honest review.

I don't know if it was my state of mind when I picked this up or what, but I just couldn't get into this one. I loved the concept but the execution fell a little flat for me.

Thanks to Penguin Putnam for the copy to review.

If you’re a fan of novels like Big Swiss, A Certain Hunger, Nightbitch, and Milk Fed, the kind where women break free of their rigid lives and routines to embrace the more daring, unhinged aspects of their personalities, then you’re going to love Rachel Bloomstein. In Amy Shearn’s Animal Instinct, New York shuts down amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the city retreats indoors, offering the woman in question — a 40-something recent divorcée, mother, and Brooklynite — the chance to finally wake up.

For Rachel, lockdown ends up being a double-edged sword. Due to the custody agreement with her (mostly vindictive) ex-husband, Josh, she doesn’t see her three young children nearly as much. Then again, with all her newfound free time, long-dormant aspects of her personality, her body, her sexuality — her entire being, really — begin to emerge. She has a lust for life that she’s not quite sure what to do with. Fortunately her best friend Lulu, another Divorced Woman™️, is there to show her the ropes when it comes to online dating, helping Rachel reinvent herself while swiping left and right over countless bottles of wine and cocktails cautiously doled out by masked bartenders.

So begins her pandemic dating journey: getting dick pics from much-younger men, flirting with beautiful women at neighborhood bars, socially-distanced park dates, and eventually, in-person sex. Rachel builds herself an unwieldy roster. As anyone who’s been on the apps knows, though, dating (especially dating in New York City) isn’t easy. No person is perfect, but . . . what if they were?

With skills gleaned from her job in tech, Rachel dreams up ‘Frankie,’ an AI chatbot that is the ideal balance of sweet, caring, flirtatious, seductive, humorous, and attentive, there to cater to all of her emotional needs via text. The more she dates, the more data she gathers to fine-tune the bot’s programming. The process isn’t without its set-backs (the book frequently reminds us that “nothing is simple”).

Rachel comes to discover that even after feeding traits of her funniest, kindest, and most empathetic friends into her AI Frankie blender, the chatbot still acts up in disappointing ways (at one point briefly becoming the digital equivalent of an unstable boyfriend who punches holes in your wall). Her conversations with the bot might simply be a pet project, a romantic fantasy, but they lead her to the realization of what she actually wants in a partner IRL (*Spice Girls voice* what she really, really wants).

Ironing out issues in Frankie’s code mirrors Rachel’s quest to evolve her own code, so to speak, even if she can’t reprogram her ex, her kids, or her friends. That’ll take a bit more than a few keystrokes.

What’s funny about this novel is, the two things I liked most about it are what ended up being hurdles for me to fully enmesh myself in Rachel’s story. First, as someone who despises and morally opposes AI with every fiber of her being, I didn’t love how big of a plot point it was in the story, I can’t lie. However I do really like the idea of creating a contemporary, digital Frankenstein, of sorts — a “boyfriend” made up of all the parts of other men (and women) you like best. And honestly, Frankie features far less in this story than I was expecting. After reading the synopsis I figured the author would lean more into the sci-fi side of it all, but Animal Instinct is more of a ‘slice of life’ dramedy. (Which I appreciated.)

Second, I was blown away by how accurately Shearn captures the feeling of frenzied drama, anxiety, loneliness, devastation, and monotonous mundanity that people in New York (and most everywhere else) endured during COVID-19 lockdown — baking sourdough and taking masked walks in Prospect Park, sure, but also hearing the sound of refrigerated morgue trucks idling on street corners daily. (“The city felt doomed but at least the bars had started serving to-go drinks.”) It’s the most pandemic-y pandemic novel that I’ve read, if that makes sense? I mainly avoid books and TV episodes that take place during 2020 like the plague (OK, poor choice of words, sorry), given the kind of memories they dredge up. I don’t think I’m alone in preferring not to revisit that time, even in fiction. (I also find it kinda boring?) Although in this case, Shearn is such a talented writer that I almost didn’t care.

I wouldn’t say this was a home run for me, but I did really enjoy it. It’s a pleasure to be along for the ride as Rachel discovers new layers within herself, “all the Rachels within Rachel” — mom Rachel, work Rachel, artist Rachel, dating Rachel. They coalesce to form Rachel Rachel: a better mother; a more understanding friend; a woman with a backbone and a voice; and even being a new divorce sherpa, of sorts, to a whisper network of fellow divorced (or soon to be divorced) Brooklyn moms. (“She wanted to buoy them up with [her support], these women who had slipped through the cracks, women who now wandered the streets of Brooklyn, brains whirring, ‘What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck.’”) In my opinion, every version of her is worth knowing.

Thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Animal Instinct was an excellent read. The writing was propulsive and the character development was rich. I would read more from this author.

This book exceeded my expectations; it was such an amazing story, and the characters were so memorable. I was totally engaged throughout the entire novel.
The book was full of vivid descriptions and vivid imagery to the point where I felt like I had slipped into the pages.

3.5 ⭐️. this book truly reminded me of all of the terrible aspects of early days of the pandemic. but it also reminded me of all of the transformation, growth and hope we collectively had for the future.

ty to G.P. Putnam's Sons, Penguin Group & NetGalley for an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Been waiting a while for a new book from Amy Shearn and this absolutely ripped me apart, no pun intended. A take on AI love that reveals exactly what we, as human needs - it's gorgeous!

3.75 stars! ANIMAL INSTINCT was a darkly funny, fascinating read. Set in Brooklyn at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the story follows Rachel Bloomstein, a recently divorced mother who enters the online dating world during a time of isolation. None of the people she meets are perfect...but what if she could create someone who was? Enter Frankie, an AI chatbot Rachel creates to be her "perfect person" and cater to her emotional needs. Frankie is the kind of uncomplicated figure Rachel wants, but the real world, and her relationships with her ex-husband, her children, her friends, her dates, isn't quite so straightforward. What will Rachel do when she's forced to look beyond the screen?

Everyone has a pandemic story, but you've certainly never experienced one like Rachel's before. Amy Shearn does a great job of developing Rachel's character and highlighting the uncertainty within and around her, as she tries to figure herself and her life out in the midst of an overall confusing and tumultuous time. While you may not agree with all of her decisions, you'll still be immersed in her witty, introspective journey of self-discovery! I really enjoyed the writing style of the book, and the pacing kept me absorbed throughout. I also thought it was a good choice to make the pandemic more of a "backdrop" to the story and not have it consume the whole narrative in a more stressful/overbearing way. Overall, I would definitely recommend this one for fans of the TV show Girls, books like ANNIE BOT, and/or sharp, satirical stories about women exploring the messiness of their lives! Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC.

Sex and the City but make it a single divorced mom in the height of the pandemic. This is really heavy on the pandemic times so if you don’t want to relive that this may not be for you. Also the ex husband will infuriate you. I really enjoyed the authors writing style and the pacing of the plot. It does get suddenly spicy throughout.

Thank you to Netgalley for this arc. This book remind me a bit of Annie Bot, I really liked that book as well. This follows Rachel who is previously divorced and trying to get back in the dating scene. She learns the online dating life from her friend, Lulu. Rachel creates Frankie, AI chatbox. Meanwhile this is fun, she realizes she can't reprogram her ex, her children, and all the wrong she doesn't like.

This will throw you right back into 2020 and the height of a pandemic -- how would you feel if you got divorced on the precipice of COVID? It was certainly an interesting thought experiment. I liked it at times and really disliked it at times. It was well written but perhaps too real? Definitely interesting - give it a try!!

Animal Instinct comes out next week on March 18, 2025 and you can purchase HERE.

Somehow she'd thought that they'd agreed, in a nebulous, unarticulated way, that they'd have adventures together, would create some new kind of way to live, figure out how to forge a family life that was totally unlike a sitcom. He'd ridden a motorcycle around their college campus, for Christ's sake, and yet once they were married, he expected meat and potatoes on the table when he got home from work. He and his friends used to stage elaborate illegal rock shows in abandoned warehouses, and a few decades later he was scolding her about her dishwasher loading. She'd assumed they were, like, too cool for convention. Certainly she should have discussed her expectations in actual words, rather than gliding along on assumptions, but: youth. She'd presumed he wanted, as she did, an equal partnership. Hadn't he read The Feminine Mystique? He'd taken Women's Studies 101! She knew because she had been there, making eyes at him from the back row.


By the end of their marriage, she couldn't remember the last time her husband had done anything for her or the children or their home that she hadn't had to request and remind and trade for. For a long time, she'd tried to convince herself that this was simply the economics of partnership. He accused her of nagging him constantly. Maybe she did.

I feel like 87% of this book was exactly what I wanted it to be, and the last 10ish percent really left me wanting. I was laughing out loud and reading sections to my husband and taking notes on some of the dry, perfectly timed observations on female sexuality, married life, pandemic era dating, but something about the ending—perhaps it was the return of her kids, the end of the summer, some desire for closure—made the closing a little too tidy, a little trite for my taste.

I still think I would recommend this title for fans of Dolly Alderton, Sloane Crosley, or Meg Mason, though, which is lofty praise (in my book), so take my complaints about the ending with a grain of salt.

Thank you to Penguin Group/Putnam for the opportunity to read and review!

I did enjoy this, just not quite as much as I'd anticipated. I think I'm juuuust shy of the age range this will do best with. The humor was definitely there, and I love the AI aspect of the premise, but the addition of the pandemic felt a little forced at times. I think (and truthfully, hope) I'll be in the minority on this one though.
It's not you, it's me!

(Thank you bunches to Amy Shearn, Putnam & NetGalley for the DRC in exchange for my honest review!)

A different sort of pandemic story. A different sort of feminist discovery of self story. Rachel is unhappy and she's stuck thanks to the pandemic. She's got so much to deal with, what with her parents and her children but she's also lonely so why not engage in very risky behavior. And why not create an AI Chatbot and call it Frankie. Ahearn does a good job of pinpointing her fears and desires. It would be easy to be judgey about what Rachel does but give her a chance. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. An interesting read.

Millennial bisexual pandemic era “Her” for fans of the television show “Girls”. Characters had so much depth. A lot of people like to think less of pandemic reflective novels, but I am always inclined to like them. It was such a time. Loved this book.