We the Animals
Ratings34
Average rating3.5
Three brothers tear their way through childhood - smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from rubbish, hiding when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn - he's Puerto Rican, she's white. Barely out of childhood themselves, their love is a serious, dangerous thing. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to forge his own way in the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and incredibly powerful.
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I'm not sure I can adequately write a review of this book today. It's the kind of book that sits with you for a while and you find deeper meaning over time. It's not an easy book to read. Raw is the word that comes to mind first. It is very well written and I can see why it received the critical acclaim it has. For now, I'll say this. One of the things that I kept thinking about while reading it was that there are so many people out there who we just don't SEE. We don't see the lives behind the closed doors of their homes; we don't see who they are inside, or take the time to look for it; we don't see the struggles they face to ‘get out' or deal with their inner demons.
A potent, fiery novella about three brothers clawing their way through childhood in upstate New York, bound together by their hardscrabble circumstances. Told in the first person plural, the voice eventually whittles down to a single narrator, drawing attention to the way the author is imprinted and influenced by his family of origin, even as he carves out an autonomous identity. Each chapter tells a self-contained story, but the cumulative effect is powerful and enveloping.
