Rating: 
Summary: I Have Some Wild Animosity for this Book
Review: This is easily one of the worst books I have ever read. It's difficult to believe that a publisher can have read this manuscript and thought it was publishable. Why, wait a minute! The publishing house, Too Far, was founded by this book's author, Richard Shapero! Well, that explains the lack of serious editing or promotion."Wild Animus" is a fantasy about the 60's. By "fantasy", I mean that it is a story written by someone who knows nothing about the 60's and made things up as he went along. The main characters, Sam and Lindy, are fictional hippies who speak in stilted diatribes about enlightenment, empowerment and oppression. All written by an author who apparently has never been enlightened, empowered or oppressed. The dialog throughout reads like someone who has never heard a conversation, and has only read bad poetry in translation. The actions are those of people who have no sense. I canot, cannot believe anyone would consider this book publishable, let alone start his own company with the intention of publishing it. Please do not read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Insert Sheep Joke Here (and use a condom)
Review: This is just awful. I know the author travels in the Alaska wilderness, etc, but he can't write worth a damn.
Animus means "mind" or "hostility". It does not mean what this clown thinks it means.
This is about a man who goes crazy and thinks he's a wild mountain sheep. His girlfriend supports him by waiting tables while he hikes around Mount Wrangell, working up the nerve to throw himself in and hallucinating that he is a sheep, and that his girlfriend is a pack of wolves who chase him, and that inside the (volcanic) mountain there is a god who will somehow save everyone by releasing their emotions.
None of the characters seem real. The prose is turgid and wordy, adejective laden and irksome. How many times do I need to be told about a meadow full of Alaska wildflowers? And why would I CARE about this idiot who mutilates himself and dances around on a mountain. In addition, the 1960s "setting" is totally unconvincing. This maniac belongs in the men's movement, "shaman" and "power animal" craze of the 1990s. No one in the 60s talked or acted like that. The author knows nothing about LSD, which is the excuse for most of the sheep segments of the novel (sorry, can't think of something else to call them.)
I will never read anything by this guy again. No wonder the book was free. Who would pay for this trash?
Rating:
Summary: LOSER!
Review: This was one of the worst book I have ever read. I only finished it because it was given to me as an advanced reading copy and I needed something to read while hitting the treadmill at the gym. I would give it ZERO stars if Amazon would let me.
The author makes light of Christianity and the protagonist is always on LSD.
Basically the guy takes advantage of his wife so that he can climb around Alaska pretending to be a Dall ram. Corny idea and stupid plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Into the wild
Review: WILD ANIMUS chronicles the descent into drug-induced madness of a man as he journeys into the Alaskan wilderness on a spiritual quest to find his true self, and its effects on those around him, including the woman who loves him.
Sam Altman meets Lindy as a student at Berkley and realizes almost immediately that they are soul mates. Before long, they move in together, leaving their friends behind. Sam becomes obsessed with the Dall sheep that live in Alaska's mountainous wilds, identifying with them to the point that he engages in serious role-playing to discover his true heart. He takes LSD to aid him in reaching this other state of mind. Eventually he spends all his time in this state, convinced he has connected with a primal god he calls Animus.
I've seen an amazing amount of hatred directed at this book. I've seen it described as misogynistic and offensive to women. (What isn't, these days?) I guess only women are allowed to search for (and find) enlightenment. If you are that threatened by the thought of a man doing the same, take your issues to a therapist rather than transposing them onto a piece of fiction. Apart from that, you can't expect characters in a story to behave the way you want them to. If you want something that fits into a cozy, acceptable mold, find something with Oprah's sticker on it.
This is a heady novel and obviously not for everyone. At times it is difficult to get through, and I did find the hallucinatory passages tiresome as they increased in frequency. It's not a perfect book; the characters are fairly two-dimensional. But it's not really about them. Shapero writes beautifully and with first-hand knowledge about nature and the northern landscape. It's an interesting experiment that the adventurous will find rewarding.
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