Animals Rising

Animals Rising is a young adult fantasy that works as an allegory about how casually people accept the slaughter of animals for food. It combines adventure with a forbidden romance, and the story alternates between two narrators.

Hawk is an 18-year-old boy who lives deep in the forest, in a village of humans hidden from the giants who share the land. Mira is a 17-year-old girl whose people arrived in this country several generations ago. Their gods told them that hunting the small human animals of the woods would save them from starvation. Mira has grown up in a medieval town, and at her age she is being pressed to find a boy to marry.

Then she learns that the human animals in the forest are being hunted toward extinction. She drops any thought of settling down and resolves to save the wild humans from the hunters and the butchers. Her resolve is tested when she meets Hawk, who has secretly slipped into her town on a terrifying mission. Her involvement with this wild human boy could have far-reaching consequences: it could help save humanity, or end it.

The book includes some violence and death, as well as giants eating human meat.