Book Review: “We the Animals”
“We the Animals” follows the relationships of the narrator and his family as he grows from a young boy into a young man. Using first-person narration, this memoir-fiction hybrid takes real aspects of author Justin Torres’ life and weaves them into a fictional story. Torres takes the readers through the struggles of growing up in a family having a difficult time making ends meet. Waiting at the dinner table for more food even though his mother said that there isn’t any more; going to sleep at his father’s job working the night shift as a security guard; and climbing to sit on the edge of a highway overpass with his brothers—in these ways, Torres, both as narrator and author, shows how his own past experiences made him who he is today. He has survived living with the near-constant threat of his parents separating due to their argumentative and explosive relationship. Living through the struggles of his parents’ volatile relationship, Torres’ character is inseparable from his brothers, Joel and Manny. The relationship becomes strained, however, once Justin begins to pull ahead of the other two academically and socially. As he gets older, Torres equates his situation to that of animals; as a young man, he has animalistic needs, as well as animalistic responses to these needs. One particularly risky situation makes him, in his words, come of age that very night. Via his first person narration, Torres makes readers feel as if they were there with him as his story unfolds. However, Torres switches to second person narration in the last chapter, directly addressing the readers to “[l]ook at the son… [and to] listen to the… confusion in the boy’s voice as he asks…” We the Animals presents the strain of familial relationships in a coming of age story that may provoke nostalgia in readers as they think about their own childhoods and family life.
“We the Animals” by Justin Torres; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
Recommendation: ****
by Cathleen Alarcón
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