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Animals

Emma Jane Unsworth

3.54 · Rating details · 5,057 ratings · 374 reviews

It is the moment every twenty-something must confront: the time to grow up. Adulthood looms, with all it's numbing tranquility and stifling complacency. The end of prolonged adolescence is near.

Laura and Tyler are two women whose twenties have been a blur of overstayed parties, a fondness for drugs that has shifted from cautious experimentation to catholic indulgence, and ...more

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published October 6th 2015 by Europa Editions (first published May 1st 2014)

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May 18, 2014 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

This unexpectedly wonderful (and please note extremely vulgar) novel is being bandied around as “Withnail with girls”. That’s the quote on the front. For those who do not know the cult 1987 British movie Withnail and I you should know that Withnail, a skeletal out of work actor, exists in only three conditions; first is drunk, in which he says things like

We've gone on holiday by mistake.

Or (whilst driving)

Look at this : accident blackspot! These aren't accidents, they're throwing themselves into ...more

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Dec 08, 2015 Oriana rated it liked it

Shelves: zeitgeist-y, read-2016

It is 4º in Brooklyn right now—record-breaking, life-threatening (sez the mayor!), tooth-rattlingly cold. When I walk my poor little pups, the pee arcs out of them already in icicles. I'm a big fan of winter, but this is preposterous.

So I did the only sensible thing: I canceled all my fabulous Saturday-night pre-Valentine's party plans, laid in provisions, roasted a giant panful of veggies, and read a whole book, cover to cover, while eating too much chocolate. It was kind of a fabulously decad ...more

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May 01, 2014 Thom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

‘You know how it is. Saturday afternoon. You wake up and you can’t move’

Laura is caught between two worlds. One the one hand, she is engaged to Jim, a concert pianist with a budding international career, and a nice flat in the centre of town; on the other, her best friend and housemate Tyler is an uninhibited force of nature, ‘by turns many things: nemesis, ally, co-conspirator, master of persuasion’. Laura is working on a novel, Bacon, about a priest who falls in love with a talking pig, but pr ‘You know how it is. Saturday afternoon. You wake up and you can’t move’

Laura is caught between two worlds. One the one hand, she is engaged to Jim, a concert pianist with a budding international career, and a nice flat in the centre of town; on the other, her best friend and housemate Tyler is an uninhibited force of nature, ‘by turns many things: nemesis, ally, co-conspirator, master of persuasion’. Laura is working on a novel, Bacon, about a priest who falls in love with a talking pig, but progress is slow – the rest of the time she works in a call centre, and drinks. Her life is a battle between the urge to create and the siren call of ‘The Night’, with its ‘deals, promises and gauntlets’. Tyler is The Night’s greatest advocate, and much of the novel follows the women’s hazy adventures through Manchester after dark. Periodically, Jim returns from whichever exotic location he has been performing in to try to restore some balance to the situation.

Animals comes with a cover quote from Caitlin Moran, calling it ‘Withnail with girls’. There are plenty of similarities between the book and Bruce Robinson’s film: both focus on close, same-sex friendships which veer between symbiosis and mutually-assured destruction, both feature would-be creatives who do a lot more drinking than creating, and both even include disastrous trips to Cumbria. But take a minute to think about what life would be like for a female Withnail.

During a recent talk at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, the critic Olivia Laing argued that there is a double standard in play when we discuss male and female alcoholism in literature. There is, she said, a large audience which wants to hear anecdotes about Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald in their boozy heydays, even if they tend to gloss over the terrible later years; on the other hand if you try to talk about Jean Rhys, drinking herself to death at home, no-one wants to hear about it. Female drinkers are censured, not celebrated (maybe Dorothy Parker is an exception, dispensing withering put downs with a glass in her hand). This disparity is reflected throughout the wider culture. Articles on public drinking are frequently illustrated with images of women, suggesting a greater degree of shame - an approach which has become a cliché, mocked by the BBC website’s paper monitor.

Unsworth is aware of this double standard; while Withnail is allowed to carry on boozing without censure, Laura is subjected to the judgements of the newly sober Jim, who frequently reminds her that ‘you have more chance of conceiving’ if she stops drinking, that booze doesn’t fit ‘with what I want for our future’. This is just the latest version of what Laura has internalised from an early age. She remembers going to a psychiatrist, aged 12, and discussing how she felt ‘pressured’ by the expectations placed on her. The pressure she feels seeps into her narrative, as she feels a need to justify herself to an unseen audience: ‘I sipped. Give me credit for that, will you?’ Her drinking is, in part, a reaction to this, a way of escaping the constant sense of being monitored. ‘The point of intoxication,’ she says at one point, ‘was not to create but to destroy the part of me that cared whether or not I created’. Of course, this is a vicious circle – each bout of drinking is prelude to an attack of ‘the existentials’, which have to be managed with a strict set of protocols: ‘no news, no parental phone calls, some fresh air of you could tolerate the vertical plane’.

While it makes a serious point, though, Animals is also very, very funny. It is probably dangerous to go drinking with Emma Jane Unsworth, as it seems like she has harvested years of night-out anecdotes to include here. The novel opens with Laura passed out on her bed, her half-removed tights caught over the frame; Tyler walks in, surveys the scene, and drawls, ‘Way I see it, girls are tied to beds for two reasons: sex and exorcisms. So, which was it with you?’ Laura’s brain flicks through random, fractured images from their night out: ‘fizzy wine, flat wine, city streets, cubicles, highly experimental burlesque moves on bar stools’.

Sometimes the laughs come from Laura’s outrageous behaviour (the time ‘we dressed up as Paula Yates and John Leslie for a Dead Celebrities party… the time we swam in a loch at lunchtime and had sex beneath a war memorial, causing a group of hikers to call the police’), sometimes from killer one-liners (‘I’m going to do what any rational person should do when they find their days are numbered. Move to Stoke. It’ll seem like longer’). Elsewhere, Unsworth’s blend of smart prose and comic observation leads to such memorable images as ‘a discarded Peperami sheath like an anteater’s condom’.

The structure of Animals is more straightforward than her innovative debut, Hungry, The Stars and Everything, and the pace is much faster, but even as the narrative races along it is clear that Unsworth has spent time crafting her prose. She picks over the ‘shabby tragedy’ of a run-down hotel, ‘its background fizzling bleakness’. A seduction becomes ‘an autopsy with cutlery’. Anyone who knows Manchester will appreciate descriptions of ‘the monstrous blade-phallus of the Hilton Tower’, or the space around Victoria Station, ‘sullen with redundancy… the Green Quarter where To Let signs prickled the front lawns of artless tower blocks’.

Events become increasingly surreal as the novel progresses, reflecting Laura’s fraying psyche. The women find themselves getting chased out of an underground Spanish speakeasy after their friend insults a dwarf; at some point Laura’s work not-in-progress Bacon becomes Killing the Changes, ‘because that’s more mysterious and I want the book to be mysterious and complex even though its about the simplest thing really and that’s love’, her retreat into abstraction reflecting her difficulty in engaging with the reality of her life. A traditional narrative would have Laura hitting rock bottom before getting on to the business of redemption. The nearest Animals comes to this is a confrontation in the toilets at Manchester Town Hall, but this is more a coming of age than a cautionary tale. There is a strand of hope in Laura’s story courtesy of a subplot involving her father, who is diagnosed with cancer but finds solace in the progress of the Mars Rover.

Critics like Sarah Hughes in The Guardian have identified a new trend for ‘literary bad girls’, novels with female anti-heroes ‘happy to live outside society’s boundaries’, including Emma Jane Unsworth and Zoe Pilger as prime examples of the genre, along with the Guardian’s obligatory Lena Dunham mention. Partly, Hughes says that these novels are a rejection of ‘the comfortable romantic lies’ and ‘the petty stuff of domestic life’ which comprise a clichéd view of female literature (I think this is a bit of a straw woman argument – throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries women have been writing dark and intelligent novels - whether they have been heralded or not is a different matter).

I wonder if these recent novels are influenced on some level by a shift in the relationship between power and gender in the internet age. Laurie Penny’s recent essay Cybersexism argued that while many women of her generation had found a voice through online forums, the rise of digital communication had also allowed for a renewed public scrutiny of women’s behaviour – the recent controversy over Women Who Eat on the Tube being the latest example. By creating female protagonists who break taboos and assert control over their own existences, they are rejecting the idea that they should alter their behaviour to suit pre-conceived norms.

Animals recognises the difficulties of this process, but Unsworth is careful not to moralise or censure her characters. Laura’s journey is both realistic and also extremely entertaining. After all, it’s well and good to read Tao Lin detailing the minutiae of post-moral twenty-first century youth culture, and the drug and drink count in Taipei is pretty similar to that of Animals, but sometimes you need a novel to come along with this amount of outrageous energy and élan. I would caution, though, against trying a Withnail-style drinking game with this novel. You might not make it past chapter 1. ...more

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Jan 02, 2014 Blair rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, read-abroad, 2014-release, read-on-kindle, favourites

So, I finally read this, after two years of it hovering near the top of my to-read list. It's hard to explain why I didn't make a stab at it before now - something to do with the weight of expectation, I suppose, and perhaps something to do with feeling I needed to be in the right mood or frame of mind. In any case, a holiday seemed like perfect timing. I thought, after all this waiting, I might merely like it, which was in itself a dismaying prospect, but no, I loved it. Here's what I wrote in ...more

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Jan 31, 2019 Samantha rated it did not like it

Shelves: least-favorites, drugs

Instead of Animals, Emma Jane Unsworth's novel could have been called Insufferable People. I couldn't stand the characters. They were annoying and irredeemable. And my tolerance for "unlikable" characters is high; difficult characters are often some of my favorites. But I hated this novel.

Animals is narrated by Laura. She lives in Manchester, England, with her American best friend Tyler. Laura and Tyler have been partners in crime for ten years, drinking liberally and doing lots of drugs. The tw Instead of Animals, Emma Jane Unsworth's novel could have been called Insufferable People. I couldn't stand the characters. They were annoying and irredeemable. And my tolerance for "unlikable" characters is high; difficult characters are often some of my favorites. But I hated this novel.

Animals is narrated by Laura. She lives in Manchester, England, with her American best friend Tyler. Laura and Tyler have been partners in crime for ten years, drinking liberally and doing lots of drugs. The two women love to party and exist in an insular world of just the two of them. Except now Laura is in her early thirties, working a job she hates while writing a novel that's going nowhere. A bright spot in her life is her fiancé Jim. But Tyler sees Laura's impending marriage as a betrayal of all they stand for. And with Jim disapproving of their hard partying ways, Laura is unsure of what she really wants.

Animals, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways . . . This novel is full of faux-deep statements about Life. At one point Laura thinks, "Was I not making sense? Because I actually thought I was being pretty fucking profound." This pretty much sums up the whole feel of the book. The narrator is spouting inanities at the reader and self-consciously thinking how Meaningful they are. The poetry quotation dropping throughout Animals comes off as so pretentious. The language of Laura & Tyler's friendship, their inside jokes, and film quoting is so irritatingly done. And I'm a film nerd, so you know the movie references are cringe if I can't stand them.

Instead of being edgy, this book is just really gross and foul throughout. Tonally, none of it works. It's just like, here's another gross-out story about diarrhea or vomit. The sex scenes are bad, which I cannot abide. The plot is predictable, including some painfully obvious third-act "twists." In the end, it all feels pointless. These ideas and kinds of people have been explored often and it's been done much better. When I finished, I was so glad to be done. It felt like escaping from a bad party full of people I never wanted to encounter again. ...more

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Feb 15, 2015 Sheila rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, library

Originally posted at www.bookertease.blogspot.ca

Let me start off with a bit of a warning. Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth) is not for everyone, and it is definitely not for the faint of heart. (Mom – you’re not going to like this book…..) Honestly, I am not even sure how much I like it. I mean I do like it, I really like it… but it’s kind of terrifying. It’s like someone took my early 20s and put them on crack and ecstasy and then flipped it all around til all I want to do is vomit. And that’s lit Originally posted at www.bookertease.blogspot.ca

Let me start off with a bit of a warning. Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth) is not for everyone, and it is definitely not for the faint of heart. (Mom – you’re not going to like this book…..) Honestly, I am not even sure how much I like it. I mean I do like it, I really like it… but it’s kind of terrifying. It’s like someone took my early 20s and put them on crack and ecstasy and then flipped it all around til all I want to do is vomit. And that’s literally what is happening in this book – with all of the drugs and all of the vomiting. A lot. Like over and over again. But still. I do like it.

Tyler and Laura are both girls in their late 20s/early 30s living together in Manchester, who haven’t really gotten it all figured out just yet. Instead of trying, they get drunk a lot (like every day) do a ton of drugs and then just lay about hungover the rest of the time. I think that occasionally they may go to their dead-end jobs. But everything is not as cheery as it seems on the surface. Laura is engaged to be married and her fiancé, Jim, has recently quit alcohol and she is also trying to write a novel, Bacon, about a priest falling in love with a talking pig. Tyler is having some separation anxiety and is trying to get Laura in to some crazier and crazier situations. Laura describes her friendship with Tyler as “kinship, or une affinité profonde; that doppelganger effect that can go either way: to mutual understanding or mutual destruction. Someone sees right to your backbone and simultaneously feels their backbone acknowledged” It sounds beautiful, right? Too bad Tyler is the queen bee of hot messes. She is constantly drunk or high or hungover, she is loud and crass and has no problem yelling at anyone to get what she wants, or just for the fun of it; oh and then there is the vomiting in public. Laura is almost as bad. Now to be fair we are being told the story from Laura’s point of view, but she seems to be a little more aware that maybe things have gotten out of control. The problem is, when Tyler says jump Laura says how high (heh… see what I did there…) and so all of Laura’s good intentions go running out the door.

The thing is, as dirty and raunchy as this book is, it is really good. It is really well written, it’s poignant and relevant and Unsworth does a brilliant job of showing the complexities of relationships and the pain of feeling like you are losing your best friend. She also has done a brilliant job with Laura’s character. While I am pretty sure Laura is a reliable narrator, she’s not necessarily a reliable person. She talks a lot about being a kid and trying to fit in, even if it meant pretending to be a different religion depending on that of her current friends. She talks about how she felt so much internal pressure that she would throw up and had to go see a therapist. I don’t really care for Tyler that much, but I can see how Laura would be totally taken in with her. Tyler is beautiful and charismatic, and doesn’t really give you the opportunity to say no. She’s one of those girls, who even though you aren’t sure that you really like them, you really want to be in their orbit. That’s kind of the situation here; when the story first started Tyler and Laura were soulmates, but as Laura continues the narrative we can start to see the chinks in the armour. Laura is caught between two worlds – the sensational Tyler and calm and collected Jim. Jim is stable and responsible and he really wants to settle down but his job keeps him overseas a lot, out of sight out of mind. Luckily, and most importantly Laura is head over heels for him but the distance is hard on her. “Jim. I missed him in a physical way, like a thirst. Missed his mouth and his composure and his steady loving eyes. I didn’t buy the whole ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ spiel. I was with Rochester on the matter: a cord was tied to my ribcage on one end and tied at the other end to Jim’s, and the further away he got, the thinner the cord stretched” I totally relate to Laura, besides the extreme drinking and drugs of course. When you don’t have a lot of confidence in yourself it’s so easy to get swept up with someone who makes you feel like you are part of something huge. Laura is starting to get pressure from Jim to tone things down a little though, and the stress of living in two worlds is starting to wear on her. Besides dealing with all of this, her father is dying from cancer and Laura has no idea how to deal. She’s starting to come apart at the seams, and I don’t think that it’s going to end very well. Jim is the only one who keeps her even semi stable “What was it he said to me the other day? We are not defined by how we are but by how we try to be. What if you try too hard to be everything? I countered. Lie down, he said. Lie still”. But Jim is gone a lot and things just keep escalating and I am slightly worried that Laura is going to end up dead or in jail.

Unsworth has definitely taken the traditional perceptions and roles of females and thrown them out the window. Women in their early 30s are supposed to be ready to settle down, get married, have babies and live in single family homes in the suburbs; and of course, if that’s what they want than all the power to them. But being pigeon holed like that doesn’t work for everyone, some woman are not ready to settle down, some women will never want babies or husbands or houses; being a woman in my early 30s without these things I can commiserate. I am constantly asked when my boyfriend and I are going to get married and have babies. It’s incredibly refreshing to read a story where women are going through the same things and are pushing back. I’m not sure that it’s necessary to go as far as she does with it, but it’s interesting seeing girls behave in ways that we traditionally assign to boys. And since I am only half way through, although I’m worried about Laura, I really don’t know where this story will go. I guess it’s also the way to get your point across – go big or go home, right?
...more

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Aug 09, 2019 Imi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, contemporary, kindle, british, she-writes, read-in-2019, friendship

"It was ok", as a 2 star rating. I think, perhaps, I read this too soon after The Animators, another novel centred on female friendship. I really enjoyed the writing style here, but I think the narrative and, most importantly, the friendship between Laura and Tyler got lost somewhere along the way. It's vulgar and chaotic; I think it could have been a bit more subtle and ended in a less rushed and predictable manner. Both of them are obnoxious to the extreme, and the scenes where they were eithe ...more

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Jun 07, 2014 Katie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 19, 2020 Stephen rated it liked it · review of another edition

had mixed feelings about this book based around Manchester, bits I liked it and others not

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Nov 05, 2015 Ashley rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I have no idea what this book was about.

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Nov 28, 2019 James rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Two women careen through life. This book is a visceral celebration of the joys of a great extended bender, but also of the pathos the hangover that ensues. Loved it.

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May 07, 2020 Alison Munn rated it it was ok · review of another edition

So disappointed as I really looked forward to reading this. The concept sounded so good. Execution not so much. The key characters are so unlikeable especially when you see zero character development the whole way through the book. There’s barely a plot. What it’s like is being along for the ride as the one sober person while people you kinda don’t like get wasted on a mixture of drugs and booze. You cringe inside as they do embarrassing things and try to pretend you’re listening to what sounds ...more

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Mar 28, 2018 Mekhala Pande rated it it was amazing

"Way I see it, girls are tied to beds for two reasons: sex and exorcisms. So, which was it with you?"

The coming-of-age tale of our two anti-heroines opens with this wonderfully strange scene and you're hooked.

Laura and Tyler are two women immersed in a mutually-assured-destructive and highly co-dependent relationship with each other fuelled by a zealous love for alcohol, hard drugs and late-night raucous adventures.

However, our narrator, Laura is at a crossroad in her life now, as she tries to j "Way I see it, girls are tied to beds for two reasons: sex and exorcisms. So, which was it with you?"

The coming-of-age tale of our two anti-heroines opens with this wonderfully strange scene and you're hooked.

Laura and Tyler are two women immersed in a mutually-assured-destructive and highly co-dependent relationship with each other fuelled by a zealous love for alcohol, hard drugs and late-night raucous adventures.

However, our narrator, Laura is at a crossroad in her life now, as she tries to juggle her impending nuptials and her love of 'the Night'. (pretty much heralded by the siren call of Tyler).

Laura is torn.Between two people.two ideas.The Past and the Future. Between being mired in her escapist hedonism(with Tyler) or getting trapped in another person's dream-life trajectory(Jim).
Taking responsibility for one's own life and actions is scary.The Narrator is faced with the truly frightening situation of living her life on her own terms, mostly sober.

Should she 'settle down' into domestic and stable bliss with Jim? Give up her independence and wild nights?

A note on the two protagonists-they are real, full-blooded, in-control women not afraid to break taboos or be bogged down by what society demands of them.The novel never veers into moralistic or predictable domain and the self discovery of the Narrator is brought about refreshingly and seamlessly.

At a basic level 'Animals' is a book about soulmates, albeit very, very damaged and destructive ones.The ones which crash into each other but make the other feel alive.There is a psychic recognition and understanding between the two characters which plays off its own energy and carries the book smoothly.They do not make good decisions together, but they are in it together for the rush and the crash.

I absolutely LOVED reading this book. It's smart, laugh out loud funny, vulgar, surprisingly tender when it comes to love and quite thought provoking in moments of our Yeats-spouting narrator's drug and alcohol fuelled epiphanies.

It's also a very good pick-me-up for when you're feeling a bit blue and need something surreal and fresh. Oh your life can be bad but never wretching-in-a-new-place-everyday or locked-up-in-your-drug-dealers-place or being-chased-from-a-shady-spanish-bar or underemployed-and-struggling-with-writing-a-book-about-the-love-between-a-talking-pig-and-priest bad. ...more

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Oct 02, 2015 Pickle Farmer rated it liked it · review of another edition

A fun cathartic read. I like that the protagonist was still drinking in the end and that her journey as a character didn't necessarily equal complete 100% sobriety. The shameless energy and unabashed drive in this book was very refreshing to me. ...more

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Apr 10, 2020 Anne-Marie Sims rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 05, 2015 J. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lush-life, little-girl-lost

'Shall we get another drink?' I said.
'Yes, more drink. More everything. There's a party going on not too far away if you fancy it. New friend of mine. An artist. I've got something in my pocket.' I looked at her. Of course: the whole conversation had been an elaborate preamble. Tyler was good: talking about parties made you want to party. I felt like it by then--I felt as though (oh, the justifications, they come like flying monkeys through the window) getting lost somewhere together might be go

'Shall we get another drink?' I said.
'Yes, more drink. More everything. There's a party going on not too far away if you fancy it. New friend of mine. An artist. I've got something in my pocket.' I looked at her. Of course: the whole conversation had been an elaborate preamble. Tyler was good: talking about parties made you want to party. I felt like it by then--I felt as though (oh, the justifications, they come like flying monkeys through the window) getting lost somewhere together might be good for us.
I said: "I need at least ten hours' sleep in the next forty-eight hours.'
'Baby, that's so feasible that it's verging on Logic...'

Now, just one minute, you girls. Hold it right there. How would you like your mothers to be reading what you've written? How would I like to do what? Isn't it a little early in the review for the fuck-yourself advice..?

Well, maybe not. Emma Jane Unsworth's "Animals" lays out a few post-millennial lines, tells a story over a few dozen cocktails, and looks to the grand tapestry of binge-misbehavior sagas. "All The Sad Young Men" morphs into "Absolutely Fabulous" and even still, it's pretty funny. The author is looking to bridge the raging-girl-rebel to the raw-nerve tragic girl with plenty of acting-out along the continuum.

Parody, satire, farce, blunt-force pratfall, any humor at all will do once the party is on. Comedy, though-- repeatable, sustained, effective--is famously hard to do. And a white-hot streak of consciousness comedy, is, well, born to crash and burn.

Mostly as planned. But narrative transitions, hinges, book-ends and brackets to the binge are difficult; hitting the wall in nearly every chapter is a tough act to wind up unnoticeably. Occasionally, the mayhem wraps itself neatly:

Outside the club, I took off my mask and cape and threw them into the gutter. Hailed a cab. Got in. At a red light I saw two teenaged girls sitting in a shop doorway, having one of those conversations, smoking their jaws square. They had long mullet hairstyles dyed platinum and pink, brightest at the ends, glam-rock style, dyed over the same sink. As my cab pulled away I felt the smallness of myself and everyone I knew, even the city... These mundane things we do to each other, these miniscule effects we mistake for epic at the time.

Part of the equation for this sort of Days Of Wine & Roses tale is that the center cannot hold, and so of course it does not.

But Unsworth's grasp of the allure, the rapture of the unpredictable is what gets the right bloodflow going, the right synapses set for an evening on the town:

And there it was, as always, swinging my way: The Night. With its deals, promises and gauntlets, by turns many things: nemesis, ally co-conspirator, master of persuasion. It tosses its promises before you like scraps on the road, crumbs leading into the forest: pubs, parties, booze, drugs, dancing, karaoke ... Here, kitty. Here, kitty kitty. Whatever your peccadilloes, the Night knows.

It's about 1oo% certain that first novelists like Unsworth recoil and spit nails when they hear this-- but it can still be said: this is a first novel that shows a lot of potential; and future work will only benefit by this kind of fearless, high-wire first outing. Notable for daring and the very smoothness that can be brought to near-chaos in the proceedings. Pretty funny, too. ...more

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Aug 16, 2020 Candi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, audiobook

It's been a few days since I finished this book and sadly, I haven't really thought about it as much as I'd hoped.

Reading Animals was a bit like spending a little too much time on a rollercoaster. At first it was fun and exhilarating, but by the end I felt a little bit nauseous and ready for it to end.

But by no means do I say that to put you off, as I would definitely recommend this book. Emma Jane Unsworth is a fantastic writer and has no qualms about getting real. In fact, the lack of airs and It's been a few days since I finished this book and sadly, I haven't really thought about it as much as I'd hoped.

Reading Animals was a bit like spending a little too much time on a rollercoaster. At first it was fun and exhilarating, but by the end I felt a little bit nauseous and ready for it to end.

But by no means do I say that to put you off, as I would definitely recommend this book. Emma Jane Unsworth is a fantastic writer and has no qualms about getting real. In fact, the lack of airs and graces in this book was the real highlight. Our main character describes situations as they are, and doesn't try to hide the not so glamourous side of partying, of friendship and of relationships.

This is really a tale of a woman trying to gain control of her life, and being pulled in many different directions from the people around her (people who are, in my opinion, some of the most unlikeable characters I've ever had the displeasure to read about - yes, I'm talking about you, Jim and you, Tyler). I've since read some reviews and interviews with the author and understand that her idea was to highlight the difference in how heavy female drinkers are treated in comparison to heavy male drinkers, and how unfair this pressure to lay off the booze is when comparing the sexes.

However, I have to say, I was disappointed in the direction the conversation on alcohol went. As someone who is incredibly interested in social commentary on alcohol in society and the forms of alcoholism that have been glossed over and accepted as normal, I was hoping we'd get to see a little bit of discussion on that, but this wasn't a book about the dark side of alcohol, and this wasn't that kind of social commentary.

Nevertheless, it wasn't as though partying and being wild was painted in some kind of rosy glory either. Laura's life is messy, and by the end of the book I just wanted to see her drink some water, get a good night's sleep, ditch her boyfriend and her best friend and start making decisions for herself, because it was what she wanted, and not what anyone else wanted. I felt like shaking Laura at points, and saying these are not good friends you have. these are toxic people and you need to walk away! Honestly, it was frustrating.

But oh my, it was absolutely hilarious too. How refreshing it is to read about a woman in her early thirties from Manchester, narrated by the wonderful Chloe Massey. I always feel that extra bit connected to books written about a culture that I have experienced, or at least feel very close and connected to. It makes me want to read all the British and Irish books out there, I swear!

I am definitely keen to read more by Emma Jane Unsworth, to see what she decides to explore, and to get to spend some time in the world of complex, yet a bit lost, characters. ...more

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Jan 10, 2020 Molly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Absolutely devoured this book, it has had me laughing on a train journey, wriggling around in bed in discomfort, and examining my own past friendships with more clarity. The women it centres around are vulgar and provocative and they drink enough to sink a ship but they are also damaged and dealing with the traumas that come with life. The writing is superb, nothing but praise for Emma Jane Unsworth!

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Aug 20, 2019 David rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

Proof that if you shake together a cocktail of sex, drugs, drinking, more drugs, violence, more drinking, swearing, more sex, more drugs and yet more drinking on top... it’s very boring. Actually, that’s not entirely true - Edward St Aubyn’s Bad News is incredibly funny and that’s essentially just describing a weekend-long drug binge. So maybe it comes down to the quality of the writing. And on that score, Animals is pretty terrible. Clunky and hackneyed. And dull.

Fortunately, despite that, it’ ...more

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Aug 03, 2014 Amanda Gegg rated it liked it · review of another edition

Having found myself in many a situation not too dissimilar to Tyler and Laura - albeit notably less extreme - I found that 'Animals' was everything I expected it to be but in some ways a complete surprise.

I was absolutely blown away by the artistic yet abstract prose, which was clearly thought out with the utmost strategy to define these characters' personalities despite the whirlwind of their drink and drug-fuelled lives. This is definitely a book that makes you want to put pen to paper and rec ...more

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Jan 29, 2018 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, library

Really enjoyed the style of writing, and found parts of it incredibly relatable (in a bad way). If you have been a teenager/university student in the UK then the drinking culture and relentless going out portrayed here along with the things Tyler and Lo get up to may hit a bit close to home, albeit a bit more extreme than my own experience.

I have to say it did take a while to feel like all of this was going anywhere when probably around 3/4 of the book was spent following Tyler and Lo either get ...more

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Apr 22, 2020 Anna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: idle-readers

Oof I really wanted to like this more than I did. Yes there are elements of nostalgia it brings up, and I can visualise it all taking place in Manchester really well, but I just feel that not a lot happened. They got trashed, they felt awful, repeat. The last 40-50 pages picked it up a level and we got a bit more substance, but I just didn’t feel much other than a bit of revulsion along the way. Ending was predictable and all just a bit meh.

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Jul 27, 2015 Tom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book features some really funny moments and was generally a great read. Its humour didn't take anything away from its emotional depth and dealings with conflicting relationships. Also, as a Manchester resident, I really enjoyed its references to the city and nightlife.

My only real criticism would be Unsworth's writing style. Whilst the book is a generally laid-back read and Unsworth is a good writer, the writing seems a bit 'try hard'. I feel Unsworth should have allowed the characters and ...more

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Jan 03, 2016 Melissa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Nailed it. "It"= that crazy insidious friend dynamic between young, unattached women who've become, essentially, life partners who enable each other's fuckups even as they're getting way too old for it. And then one becomes attached, and the shiz hits the fan. On top of all the prurient interest of reading about two codependent train wrecks, the writing is beautiful. Can't wait to read more from Unsworth. ...more

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Aug 07, 2019 Rachael Eyre rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Is the film markedly different from the book? The angle that drew me in - "best friend has the fiancé from hell" - wasn't reflected by the novel, which is narrated by Laura. It made me feel swindled, to be honest.

It's been described as a female Withnail and I, but it was more like the Britcom Bottom, with a pair of sleazy and unlikable leads leading debauched, pointless lives. I didn't find it shocking or provocative, just sad. ...more

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Sep 08, 2019 Fiona rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Genuinely one of the worst books I've ever read. Indulgent, offensive, smug - I loathed all the characters and the writing was just plain bad. Too many adverbs. Terrible stuff, terrible ...more

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Dec 14, 2019 Katja (Life and Other Disasters) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

If you liked this book, good for you! But I, for one, am just so relieved to be done with it. Every chapter was an accumulation of drinking, drugs, bad life choices and the same all over again and again and again. I don't know what the point was and I neither felt invested in the friendships nor any other relationships. ...more

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Nov 24, 2020 Em_AW rated it did not like it · review of another edition

3️⃣: joyless, tragic, repetitive

Reading this book was like taking a 2 hour bus journey to a party you don't want to go to, only to find when you get there that everyone is already fucked and there's no more alcohol or drugs for you. The two main characters were obnoxious and self-involved, repeating patterns of self-destruction again and again and again. Don't get me wrong, I usually love it when authors describe 20/30 somethings monging out in dirty flats, hungover and eating grated cheese with ...more

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Jun 09, 2020 Alix rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Meh. Reminded me of Marion Keyes tbh. Not sure why I read it.

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Jun 01, 2014 Lisa Bentley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Imagine what it would be like to have to constantly choose between your fiancé and your soul mate. This is the ever present predicament for Laura Joyce. She is engaged to Jim, dependable, clever and creative yet her best friend (and resident wild child) Tyler keeps pulling her to the dark (and arguably more fun) side.

The lifestyles chosen by Tyler and Jim couldn’t be more different and whilst Laura should be a natural balance between the both of them things just do not work out that way. When La Imagine what it would be like to have to constantly choose between your fiancé and your soul mate. This is the ever present predicament for Laura Joyce. She is engaged to Jim, dependable, clever and creative yet her best friend (and resident wild child) Tyler keeps pulling her to the dark (and arguably more fun) side.

The lifestyles chosen by Tyler and Jim couldn’t be more different and whilst Laura should be a natural balance between the both of them things just do not work out that way. When Laura is with Tyler she becomes party to a lifestyle of decadence; a Valhalla of drama, drink and drugs – all of which she overindulges in.

Then there is her life with Jim. She almost becomes a different person; Laura enjoys his stability and his assuredness; all the kind of things that Tyler despises, and she makes her feelings known.

You do get the sense that Laura feels that she is dependent on Tyler that she needs her yet as the story reaches its conclusion you realise it is the complete opposite. Tyler needs somebody, anybody really, just justify her antics. Animals shows us how friendships, even the closest say-things-with-a-look-and-finish-each-others-sentences friendships are not always the healthiest things. It also reminds us that growing up is not the harshest thing to ever happen.

Personally, I felt that Animals is a story about choices. I found myself urging Laura to make the right choice, to not go to another reckless party with Tyler or to not take any of the emotional blackmail that Jim threw her way and as the story develops we watch Laura unfold in front of us and grow into the most rational of the characters. She takes the better elements of Jim and Tyler and forms a better version of herself.

Overall, I would say this is one of the funniest books that I have read all year. I do feel that the translation of the humour comes from the fact that I identified with both Laura and Tyler due to their station in life. They both are growing older but aren’t quite sure how to actually grow up…gracefully at least. It is another literary triumph from Unsworth.

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About Emma Jane Unsworth

Emma Jane Unsworth

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Lives in Manchester, England.

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