Animals
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3.7 • 115 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
NOW A MAJOR NEW FILM
RECOMMENDED ON THE HIGH LOW PODCAST
'There's no ceremony for friendship, is there?'
'Believe me, if I could marry you too, Tyler, I would.'
Laura and Tyler are best friends and drinking buddies. But things are set to change when Laura gets engaged to the man of Tyler's nightmares. Can their friendship survive? Or will growing up mean growing apart?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A woman is torn between her best friend and her fianc in this delayed-coming-of-age novel filled with debauchery and friendship. Laura and Tyler live in squalor in Manchester. They're overeducated, underemployed, and devoted to excess even though their friends set aside the partying life years earlier. Now 32, Laura does the least amount of work she can get away with at her job and is similarly apathetic about writing Bacon, her novel about a priest who falls in love with a talking pig. She is engaged to Jim, a teetotaling classical pianist who is often on the road. If Jim acts as Laura's superego quietly condemning her over-indulgence Tyler is all id, sort of like a younger version of Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, and not all that quietly trying to sabotage Laura's upcoming wedding. Unsworth's writing is vividly vulgar, outrageously physical, and darkly funny. Portrayals of women behaving badly are often meant to be funny, but Tyler's aggressive self-destructiveness worries, even shocks, creating a memorable, deceptively poignant novel.
Customer Reviews
Riotous Read (and much better writing than this title)
It is so refreshing to read a book about two women that doesn't revolve entirely around their love lives.
Animals is about friendship. A unique form of funny that is usually only shared between best friends. Unsworth is not afraid to describe the kind of inside jokes, honesty and contradictions that tend to not translate so well onto paper but are vital to any genuine friendship.
I found the animal metaphor a bit annoying and unnecessary at times. Unsworth seems too conscious of needing a theme to tie it all together but she doesn't need to be! This book is a riot but she pulls it off brilliantly.
Amazing read
I can’t recommend the book (and the film) enough, just great
What a pleasure
EJU - a star. Haven't had so much joy with a new writer for years.