Book Review: City of Foxes by Vanessa Walder (The Secret Life of Animals: Forest #3)

 

Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Das Geheime Leben der Tiere: Wald #1: Stadt der Füchse.

Before you're wondering "hey, why is Alex reviewing book three in this series but have they skipped book two?": the answer is simple, this is an anthology series. Each book is about a different animal and a completely different story. Book one (which I did review) is about a she-wolf, book two is about bears (which I do plan on covering eventually, just not yet), and book three is about foxes. Book four is about ravens, but I'm unsure if I want to cover that one. So just to let you know that you (or I) are/am not missing out on anything by skipping book two.

Without further ado, let's have a look.

This book tells the life story of Finder, a red fox born to a family of wild foxes. As he grows up he learns many life lessons about nature, before eventually dispersing from his family to find his luck elsewhere. He eventually becomes an urban city fox, where he also meets a potential future mate. 

Not the most complex of stories, but it does its job very well. It's nothing grand or groundbreaking, but it tells the story it needs to tell. For what these stories are, basically xenofictions but also very much based in real-life behaviors and sometimes even events so they have a semi-educational aspect as well, they're very good at it. I am not as knowledgeable on foxes as I am on wolves, but the behaviors I read in this book still line up mostly with the non-fiction fox books I did read. The meta final afterword also makes it very clear the author did a lot of research into real foxes while writing this book, so I can definitely appreciate her sticking close to that while also being able to craft a fictional narrative around it.

The story of Finder's life is pretty basic as far as fox stories go, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting. Finder is a bit of a standard protagonist but he's still likable enough and the things he goes through are interesting and fresh enough to keep the reader engaged even if things might be a bit predictable. There's a few things you might expect to see in fox xenofictions such as the foxes having a complicated relationship with humans, dealing with other carnivores such as badgers and raccoons, growing up and finding a mate, learning to adapt to city life, etc. But again the execution is done well enough to keep the reader engaged and I definitely think the younger target audience will especially like it. I as an adult reader of xenofiction have just seen these tropes before in books around foxes, which is why they're a bit predictable to me personally.

I was also initially going to criticize this book for having a confusing setting (it's clearly set in Germany, but there's also raccoons) but then I realized that Germany does actually have an invasive raccoon population so nope, that criticism holds no ground. It is still a bit jarring to see, though, but that can't be held against the book.

Overall this is by no means a real out-of-the-box fox xenofiction, but it does its job well and is engaging enough to read. For younger readers it's probably especially enjoyable and also semi-educational, and as an older reader I had fun with it as well.

Rating: 4/5