A review by kieranhealy
We the Animals by Justin Torres

3.0

The majority of the book is a series of condensed memories. Furious and effective, I thought for sure this would be 125 pages of 5 star material. While not the second coming of Hemingway, there was a poignancy in his brevity that seemed to give all the sentences more weight. A simple description of a simple act, paired with a comment from a character, spoke more than the endless bloviating from some authors. Why 3 stars? The book ended horribly. It's completely out of tune with the rest of the book. None of the last 3 chapters makes sense or is alluded to by the previous 100 or so pages. We suddenly jump years beyond where the book takes place, all the characters have aged and become different people, including the narrator. A horrible thing happens. The end.

Some folks are clearly angry at it, but I simply scratched my head and thought "....Okay....?"