Justin Torres We the Animals - Book Report/Review Example

Your full February 20, Justin Torres We the Animals “We the Animals”, is a novel by Justin Torres, in which he beautifully describes the bondage of three brothers, and how they stood by each other when they were young, and how they became independent personalities when they grew up among turmoil, hunger, and neglect. This novel is not an action-adventure or a character-driven story, but seems to be a collection of beautiful recollections of three brothers, who saw in their childhood what they were not supposed to see, and enjoyed beautiful bonding with the family.

The main theme behind is brotherhood and love of familial ties, and one seems like relating oneself to the theme of the story, as the reader’s mind starts coming up with the stories of his own childhood, when siblings were young and loved and supported each other without having to care for their independent realization of selves, Torres writes: “We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful — little animals, clawing at what we needed” (51).

The reader gets affected by the familial bondages, and feels deeply for the unnamed narrator of the novel, if reading the novel with non-judgmental mind. He comes to know about the purity of children: “They werent scared, or dispossessed, or fragile. They were possible” (Torres 105). Although the novel is a petite, quick read, yet it is heartbreaking and affecting enough at times to shake the reader with its closeness to reality. In short, the novel can be related to real life stories of any individual, and that is what makes it so special.

Works CitedTorres, Justin. We the Animals. USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.