Animals

Reviews / Votes

An utterly triumphant ode to female friendship * * ELLE * * Animals beautifully navigates the complexities of intimate relationships. Never cloying or mawkish, it communicates vulnerability, dependence and tenderness, often in a single dazzling line . . . Like a riotous, careening night out, full of bellowing laughter and absurd details, this is a book you'll be talking about for years to come. It marks Unsworth as a tremendous talent -- Kerry Hudson * * Guardian * * What makes this novel so fresh are the unexpected turns the story takes
and the vividness, urgency and idiosyncratic panache of Unsworth's writing * * New York Times * * Animals is a riot. A kind of drunker, swearier Girls. I loved it -- MATT HAIG Hilarious, moving and poetic * * Glamour * * A gloriously over-the-top account of female friendship * * Guardian * * I wish I had written this book . . . Withnail with girls -- CAITLIN MORAN Unsworth's story is more complex than an ode to the party or a call to responsible adulthood, and her characters shine with humanity * * New Yorker * * Savagely funny, clever and wise. If it's not an instant cult classic I'm leaving the cult -- NATHAN FILER What also makes Animals so fresh - apart from Emma Jane Unsworth's lovely turn of phrase and ability to resuscitate the worst hangover you've ever had - is just how filthy these girls are * * Stylist * * Animals is more than a hymn to partygoing - it is a sharp study of the endurance of female friendship over romantic entanglements and life's challenges . . . Alternately bleak and comic, Animals gives us the pain of the morning after the night before in all its unvarnished awfulness * * Financial Times * * [A] wham-bam, helter-skelter account of female friendship, featuring two women in their early thirties whose voracious appetite for wine makes Dionysus look like a lightweight * * Independent * * A devilish tale, spun in angelic prose -- JOHN NIVEN Unsworth is a bright talent * * New Statesman * * Stunningly brilliant -- JENN ASHWORTH A fresh, albeit slightly fevered, depiction of female friendships and modern femininity in which traditional romantic entanglements take second place * * Observer * * A hilarious, madcap meditation on grown ups who are not quite ready to grow up. Her writing is as brilliantly inventive as her characters' transgressions -- HELEN WALSH Brutally funny and heartfelt. I loved it -- LAUREN BEUKES Casually high on insight, mercifully low on decorum, Animals is vital, funny, poignant and true. If you're looking for talent, style and the deep wisdom of misbehaviour, read it -- GLEN DUNCAN It's not exactly subtle, but there is an irrepressible energy and verve to Animals, a veracity to Unsworth's no-bullshit prose and her main characters' barfly pseudo-philosophising, that makes the whole thing crack along like a Friday night pub crawl. Laura and Tyler are such engaging characters that it's hard to read Animals without cracking open a bottle of wine and joining the madness * * Big Issue * * Gloriously debauched and wonderfully touching...a gripping, raucous read from one of Britain's most promising young writers * * The List * * Told through wild nights and the chaos of life as a thirty-something, this ode to female friendship is number one on my summer reading wish list * * Red Online * * A speedy, exciting tale of female friendship * * Bath Chronicle * * This is a book that will make you laugh and make you think. It's a story about friendship and growing up, and the fun that can be had and the shit that you sometimes have to leave behind * * BookCunt blog * * Animals looks like a New Order record, its narrative fuelled by cheap white wine, the non-logic of the always-intoxicated and the sensuously evocative language of a writer who's been there....but it's ultimately a sobering and tender read * * Twin Magazine Blog * *