We the Animals

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The critically acclaimed debut from the National Book Award-winning author of Blackouts.

In this award-winning, groundbreaking novel, Justin Torres plunges us into the chaotic heart of one family, the intense bonds of three brothers, and the mythic effects of this fierce love on the people we must become.

"A tremendously gifted writer whose highly personal voice should excite us in much the same way that Raymond Carver's or Jeffrey Eugenides's voice did when we first heard it."--The Washington Post

Three brothers tear their way through childhood-- smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out 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--and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. 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 see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful.

"We the Animals is a dark jewel of a book. It's heartbreaking. It's beautiful. It resembles no other book I've read."--Michael Cunningham

"A fiery ode to boyhood . . . A welterweight champ of a book."--NPR, Weekend Edition

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128 pages

Average rating: 7.43

23 RATINGS

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4 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Anonymous
Aug 22, 2024
8/10 stars
Oof.
Anonymous
May 19, 2024
8/10 stars
I read this for school.

You never know what will bring a family together or apart. How are children who are raised together so different?

I loved the story up to the very end. I feel there was too big a gap between the narrator as a child and the narrator as an adult. I was a little lost about how we got to that point in the story, but I couldn't put it down. I needed to know how it ended..
Kmr_quietstorm
Oct 20, 2023
8/10 stars
Beautifully written book. At times the rough, physical nature of the three brothers and other violence seemed jarring. I wasn't prepared for the ending.
Mick
Jun 22, 2022
10/10 stars
This is one of my favorite books. The short stories that make up this book come together to tell a powerfully tragic and beautiful story about 3 brothers coming of age. The prose is almost poetic, and it explores (sometimes challenges) masculinity, sexuality, motherhood, fatherhood, poverty, love, sacrifice, hopefulness and hopelessness.

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