The Amazing Afterlife of Animals: Messages and Signs from Our Pets on the Other Side
By: Karen A. Anderson / Narrated By: Angela Ohlfest
Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
What I was looking for… only with atrocious narration…
Good heavens, I don’t know how many times I almost stopped listening to The Amazing Afterlife of Animals. Angela Ohlfest turned in about the most unenthusiastic performance I’ve heard in quite some time. She also kept repeating lines that she’d sort of flubbed, and I’d get thrown off every time she did it (I’m rather sensitive about repetition, I know, I know!). For so much of the early part of the book, Ohlfest’s subpar and somewhat robotic narration made it hard to judge the text of the book. I mean, did I like what was being said, or was it all balderdash?
Make no mistake: If you’re a cynic, you won’t find anything in this book to persuade you otherwise. EVERYthing is based on your ability, or your desire, to suspend disbelief and to maybe, say, oh, for about 3 hours and 7 minutes worth of time, give yourself the chance to believe in something greater than what we can see. Yes, I really wish I could come across something that made me think, WOW—this is all for real! Alas, I’ve yet to come across anything like that.
But this audiobook does what Sylvia Browne’s All Pets Go to Heaven does not. It offers plenty of stories of our animal companions loving us when they’re alive and continuing to love us when they’re gone. There are anecdotes galore brought to us by Karen A. Anderson, animal communicator extraordinaire. Anderson is a woman who had a unique ability to communicate with animals since she was a child, but she grew to deny this as it always brought disbelief and taunting. As she grew older, she began to use her talents even when she worked in law enforcement, and the book has instances of where animals as witnesses helped steer her in helpful directions, helpful enough to catch perpetrators of violent crimes.
Perhaps it’s just that I’m currently in an emotionally compromised state, what with losing my sweet boy Hawthorne on the heels of losing my boyfriend Bolt on the heels of losing my baby girl Serena. I’m at a point where I desperately WANT to believe in something bigger and better and just a hairsbreadth away. The thing is, I already do (And I dunno—maybe it’ll just be an oxygen-starved brain firing images as I die, but I KNOW I’ll be seeing all my loves again at my life’s end), so listening to this audiobook with an open mind and an even more open heart was fairly easy to do… despite the near monotone of that dratted Ohlfest! The stories of bonds and friendship and love brought comfort to me.
If you’re grieving for a lost lamb of yours, I suggest this book over Browne’s hands down. Everything is covered, up to and including their thoughts on euthanasia (Read: Don’t beat yourself up if you choose that route). Tolerate the narration, but do stay for the text. I intend to breathe softly, look for signs, and listen to this again in a week or so.
It also left me wanting to listen to her first book, which I have in my Library. It’s just that Angela Ohlfest narrates that one also, so I dunno when exactly I’ll get around to doing so.
…stay tuned…
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