Creatures of Habit

by Jennifer Yeh

A woman learns to see her future in a new light with the help of an amphibious man who crawls through her window the day of her ex’s engagement party in this coming-of-middle-age novel for fans of The Correspondent and Remarkably Bright Creatures.

Gina Lee’s life was calm and comfortably predictable—until her husband Mark dropped a bomb that upended everything. After the unexpected death of his mother, Mark drifted out of the family orbit and then escaped its gravitational pull completely, leaving to start a new relationship with a younger woman.

Now, on the day of Mark’s engagement party, Gina finds her family scattered and herself adrift, reckoning with a future that looks nothing like the one she imagined and a past she must rewrite. As Gina struggles through the hours of this difficult day, she wonders how to go forward and what she wants for herself.

It’s only when a strange amphibious creature crawls through her window to ask for help that Gina begins to understand that her life is not over. In fact, with the unlikely wisdom of her new friend, she finds that it might be just beginning.

Told over the course of a single day and with a poignantly observant eye, Jennifer Yeh’s moving debut speaks to the shifting seasons of life and the deeply human ability to find joy in a few perfect moments.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Adult, Speculative Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 2, 2027

About the author

Jennifer Yeh lives in San Francisco with her family and rescue dog, Cumulus. Before writing this book about an amphibious frogman, she was a real-life frog biologist with a Ph.D. in integrative biology. Prior to that, she studied science and creative writing at Harvard College. Creatures of Habit is her first novel.

Reviews

[Mai T.]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

ANHPI TBR

[vianny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creatures of Habit is very weird girl lit adjacent, and I was genuinely shocked by how calm, accepting, and welcoming our FMC is of the amphibious man who enters her life. But it says a lot about her, how much she craves any sort of stability and normalcy after grieving and being cheated on and left for another woman, and essentially losing her family.

Our FMC is older, and I loved the exploration of aging and family dynamics throughout. This isn't going to be for everyone, I'll admit it took a minute to grow on me, but once it did, I was fully in.

By the end, I looked forward to picking this one back up every time. She started to feel like an old friend I was checking in on. I really connected with the writing.

You'll enjoy this if you love:
- weird girl lit
- an older FMC
- grief and betrayal as a starting point for healing

[Ronnica Fatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird girl lit for us middle age girlies. We still have a lot to offer and a lot of life to live, even if those we’ve poured our lives into have moved on. An enjoyable read.

[Faith M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book was so gorgeous and unexpected. I’m so happy I discovered it.

First of all, I think I’m the perfect audience for this book as a 40 something year old, single mother of two teenagers (one who plays trombone in the marching band!) and I love that for me. But being able to relate to Gina so well also made the story much more poignant and bittersweet at times.

In examining grief, loss and rejection through the small moments of a day Jennifer Yeh presents us with a jewel box microcosm of what it’s like to grow older, fall in love, be left behind and relate to the other people in our lives.

Getting older is shown as both a strength and a terrible vulnerability. Having children the greatest joy and as they grow, inevitable sorrow as the parent is left behind.

Infidelity is treated as realistically as I’ve ever seen it, nothing overly dramatic, just a mundane disappointment that happens day-by-day, year-by-year but causes massive waves.

And of course the frog man, Oliver. That we could all have him come through our widow just when we need him the most. Sigh

Plus, Nimbus is like, the best dog ever, I loved his chapter.

I really enjoyed the mixed-media writing style and perspective shifts. And the San Francisco setting was rich and evocative, just beautiful writing all around.

I loved this book so much, and I’m so grateful to NetGalley for the ARC so that I can recommend it to everyone know once it comes out.

[Renu S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was definitely unexpected. I have to admit that the unique writing style really grew on me as the story went on. I found Gina relatable, especially as she tried to make sense of how her life had turned out so differently from what she imagined. I think this story will really resonate with readers going through midlife and questioning what comes next.

The whole storyline with the green amphibious creature was definitely something I had to wrap my head around! I was surprised by how calm Gina was about this strange creature suddenly appearing in her life, and I had to convince my own mind to just go with it. But once I did, I found myself getting pulled into the story and really enjoying all the little details.

I also loved how the book touched on other characters, especially Gina’s mother-in-law. Their stories drew me in and made me think about how unpredictable life can be, how people’s paths change in unexpected ways, and how much there is to someone’s story beyond what we initially see.

Overall, this was a thoughtful and surprisingly engaging read. I loved how it explored starting over, finding your footing when life doesn’t go according to plan, and realizing that there may still be so much ahead of you. It was an unusual story, but one that really grew on me, and I found myself hooked by all the little details along the way.

[LL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so much NetGalley for this absolutely beautiful read!

I fell in love!! We are allll creatures of habit and I can’t not wait for the publication of the physical copy!! I also love this author!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odd and interesting book. It's not terribly focused on pursuing the fantastic Whys and Hows of romance with a fish man. And honestly? As a middle aged woman, I dug that narrative choice. In this story it's just a thing that happens, because that's what life is...time you are alive in which shit happens.

Gina, like many of us, is tired. Her husband just left her and checked out of parenting duties entirely. She's rattled and pissed. So when she encounters her new fishy friend, it's not fireworks, but kind of an interesting distraction. That tracked for me. Unless someone dies, I don't get terribly worked up about passing drama anymore. If fish dude came to my house I'd probably just chill with him too.

I guess what surprised me is how brief everything is, and how it's all described in a dreamy way (as if this whole story might be a figment of her mind). Even though we learn details about the fish guy's thoughts and history, we don't fully get to KNOW him. And while Gina liked him, it doesn't feel like a love story.

Ultimately you're left with a tale of a weird thing that happened to a woman who is at a weird point in time in her life, to which she reacted in a unique (maybe weird?) way.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

[Avery Hiller · Rating 2.25 out of 5]

I'm not the reader Creatures of Habit was written for - and that's the beauty of art.

Typically, the stream-of-conscious writing style is one I enjoy, but in this case, it feels like we are thrown into and out of Gina's thoughts with little to no structure. Every time I felt the beginnings of a connection to the story, the connection was derailed by a change in writing style or sudden change of topic.

Unfortunately, I just wasn't able to find my footing in this one. I think I could have gotten there if it (on one side of the spectrum) were longer with more room for roots to form, or (on the other side of the spectrum) were a short story without the details that led to confusion more often than understanding.

I would not simply recommend this book to those who loved Remarkably Bright Creatures, as the writing style here is tailored and the depth of relationships clipped versus Shelby Van Pelt's universal writing style and relationship-founded story. The only similarities are themes of familial grief and a relationship between human and non-human.

If you're looking for a quick read with unique structure and minimal (but there) tugs on your heart strings, I'd recommend this to you!

[Hannah Bishop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book is marketed incorrectly, to start. It is not lighthearted to balance out the emotional aspects like The Correspondent or Remarkably Bright Creatures and it will definitely be too sad and weird for most people. It will undoubtedly be compared to The Shape of Water and it's not like that either, amphibious man aside. The majority of this book is our main character, Gina, thinking mainly about two things: her husband cheating on her and getting engaged to another woman and the sudden death of her mother-in-law by suicide
The story is told over the course of a day, and I was ready to be done pretty early on. I kept going because of the promise of a frog man-related epiphany. I am not sure what that was, other than her deciding not to get gills or realizing she's capable of intimacy with at least one species. The format of this book is really odd, with a bunch of interludes and other chapters that break up the main story. One is from the perspective of the dog, which mostly just reiterates how sad Gina is and combines words to indicate different smells. One is a story about space travel. The last chapter's writing gets looser as it goes on, which felt more like a breakdown than Gina discovering anything about her life. I also found myself having a hard time with the writing; I was honestly surprised how much the comma splices forced me to reread sentences to understand what they were saying.

If you want to feel really bad for a fictional character and wonder about people's life choices, this might be a good fit for you.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC!

[esther]

I love a weird girl concept but the prose here just fell flat for me - overly specific without good rhythm, attempting at charm and capturing only dull quaint-isms, and frankly uninspiring. I could not find myself really caring about the main character, found its depiction of divorce and family surface-level and lacking detail so as to make the plot un-nuanced, and was unable to absorb myself in content whose style seemed so obtrusively quotidian that I often found myself skimming the page.

[Lora Preston · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

This book is definitely unlike any other I’ve read and it was a nice way to change things up. The cover also had people at the airport bar inquiring about what I was reading, which was so fun to me. I felt so engrossed in Gina’s life and her emotions. I am Team Olive. 🫒 lol.
Thank you @netgalley for the arc.