You will never forget Joan. Her words will cut through your thin skin and slice your heart into bloody red ribbons of pain, horror and compassion. Animal is a story created in trauma and drenched in female rage. The brutality of the words might offend at times but they need to be heard.

When Joan witnesses her lover's death she leaves New York for Los Angeles. She is on a mission to find someone but we don't know who or why yet. Disturbed and thinking herself depraved Joan appears to be on a path of self destruction and settles into a stifling apartment in the Santa Monica mountains. Here surrounded by unrelenting heat and the cries of coyotes, she thinks she will find all the answers to her life. Bur someone is looking for her too.

We learn about her relationships with her parents and men through two timelines, the present and the past. The prose is stunning in both settings and makes for a compelling read. Some lines so unique and gorgeous that they take your breath away and make you pause in reflection. Lisa is a magnificent writer whose powerful words seem to burn the page.

Highly Recommended.

I can see that this is a well written book and I felt that I ought to appreciate it. But I didn't. I just couldn't relate to the narrator. I felt too detached somehow and the book was just too dark for my taste.

Wow, this book was dark and disturbing and at times confusing. It really transports you into the headspace of Joan, and while at times you might not like her, by the end you will just want to hug her. You get a real sense of Joan's thoughts, feelings, wants and desires- Lisa is an absolute marvel of a writer. I found parts of the story difficult to follow (a jumble of thoughts and reflections rather like my own mind!) and you had to stay invested in the story for it all to unravel and make sense of why Joan behaves like she does. Definitely a book I will read twice.

Up until 75% I felt very detached and indifferent about this book. I know the past of the protagonist was meant to be mysterious and revealed slowly but i don’t think it had the intended affect on me as i didn’t care too much and felt disorientated if anything. After 75% thing finally start to make sense and I started to enjoying. I also started to appreciate the plot as a whole.

I usually love depraved, emotional, traumatised protagonists but I didn’t love this one. There are also some heavy subject matters and gruesome
scenes.

I requested to read this book as I discovered Taddeo's work by reading her non fiction book, Three Women. This is her first novel. It certainly packs a punch from the first page. We meet Joan who seems to have a thing for married men. She does have a troubled past, she was orphaned as a child, but you don't find out how until later in the book.

It does flit between different time frames as she reminisces about her past and the current time. Due to one of her lovers shooting himself in front of her, she decides to leave New York and head to Los Angeles to seek out Alice. As the story progresses we find out who Alice is.

The book certainly packs a punch.

Animal by Lisa Taddeo.
This novel starts off at a blistering pace and I was hooked from the off. But despite being well written, interesting and a good premise I found the book to be quite disturbing. There are many triggers in this book and will affect many readers. It is an uncomfortable read and ultimately I struggled to finish it.

Joan is depraved and I love her. I highlighted so many passages in this book! Raw and visceral are words I've seen used to describe it. They are apt. One thing is for sure - Lisa Taddeo can write like a mofo. She knows how to get under your skin. She knows how to flay you alive. "Animal" is a story steeped in trauma and marinated in female rage. It has all the makings of a cult classic. I didn't know anything going in, so I don't want to give spoilers. Joan is the epitome of a complex character. I found Alice's perspective really interesting, with her detached and astute observation. So many times I rolled my eyes and thought, "why are men such trash?" There are some really horrifying sections in the book which will stay with me, and some parts where I laughed (probably inappropriately) e.g. I found some of Vic's wife's rants hilarious. It's a book about how what happens to us as children shapes us in adulthood though in all honesty, "Animal" feels like so much more than a book. It's an incredible piece of work.

Very good. Tough and frank and should definitely appeal to those, like me, who loved Three Women. Fascinating to see where she goes next.

Interesting concept that was a compelling and sexy read but unsure about how to feel about the characters and therefore struggled to understand what it was really about.

Animal by Lisa Taddeo

Oooh my, this was one of those books that I had to split through several sittings, not because it wasn’t gorgeous and tempting and rich with colour and taste but because sitting in someone’s mind and slowly witnessing them turn from prey to predator in this male dominated world was so fresh and raw and dark as hell it spun me out.
Taddeo’s writing is mesmerising, her fiction debut is a fucking masterpiece.

Trigger warnings: rape, sexual assault, miscarriage, paedophilia, car crash, drug abuse and suicide.

Synopsis –
‘Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruel acts of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles, Joan unravels the horrific event she witnessed as a child—that has haunted her every waking moment—while forging the power to finally strike back.’

I feel about Animal the same I felt about Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women - I liked it a lot and I know everyone will be talking about it, but I didn’t love it as much as I expected.

This is very much my kind of thing. Animal is the story of a messy millennial woman struggling to understand her life and her relationships. It’s very very dark - themes of suicide, murder, sexual assault, rape, miscarriage and death are very prevalent.

It’s also my kind of thing because it’s one of those “hard to describe/not much really happens” books. We follow Joan, who moves to California after her lover shoots himself in front of her after he finds her having dinner with another man.

And from there we follow Joan in California in her messy life, recounting her past and her present, and the traumas of her life. It’s incredibly dark but very compelling, I found myself not wanting to put this down.

It’s very hard to define and review and describe but I was definitely compelled. 4 stars

I don't really know what to say about this book. I spent 98% of it disliking Joan, our anti-heroine, 1% feeling sorry for her and trying to understand her and 1% forgiving her and loving her like my daughter, my mother, my sister, my best friend. This is not a book you 'enjoy exactly, I fact large parts of it left me feeling sordid and dirty, but it is an exceptionally well written look at the relationships women have with their mothers, their fathers ,with other women and with men. It is a look at misogyny, and at the power imbalance between men and women. There is a lot of sex. There are rapes, child abuse, miscarriages, murder and suicide. It shies away from nothing and is all the more raw, gritty and powerful for it. Exceptionally moving, I was sobbing by the last page,l. I just wanted to hold Joan but instead went and held my own daughter.

A violent death causes Joan, an unmarried thirty six year old woman, to leave New York City and head for Los Angeles. We’re not initially sure why she’s headed to L.A. in particular, but she’s clearly led a disturbed life and sees this latest incident as simply the final affront - she’s gone from this city. Her parents had died when she was only ten years old and she was subsequently brought up by an aunt, though in a way that lent her a good deal of freedom. When she had money she spent it and though her aunt had been generous and she’d inherited quite a chunk from her parents that’s largely been frittered away now. But she’s on a mission, that much is clear, we just don’t know what that mission is.

In California she rents a house in the Santa Monica Mountains owned by an odd fish called Leonard and gets friendly with an attractive guy who lives in a yurt close to the house. At a nearby café she gets a job making coffee and serving trendy health food. There’s not a huge cast of people here but we meet the few Joan comes into contact with and gradually learn the story of two men she had relationships with back in NYC, and how events eventually came to the boil.

Joan’s reflections on her relationships with men, her parents and on life in general include some really great lines. I found myself pausing to re-read some and even writing a few down to mull over later. She’s haphazardly promiscuous but clearly looking for something she’s yet to find. Some brief encounters seem almost like random acts of self-abuse. She seems to fall into relationships with men: some who she finds attractive, others seek her out and though she is to a degree repelled by these men she uses them to accrue some kind of profit. But it’s difficult to get inside her head - what is it she’s ultimately seeking, is it a figure to replace the father she lost so early in her life?

Her relationship with her parents was complex, we discover. She loved her father deeply, even if he was a rather stand-offish figure, and admired her mother. And the circumstances of their deaths are somewhat mysterious. Their early exit from her life obviously traumatised her but was it the loss itself or the manner of their passing that’s weighing most heavily on her? The narrative keeps you off balance, the whole picture is never visible. It’s not a complex story to follow but it’s difficult one to fathom.

As it draws to a close it seems that Joan has murder on her mind, but is she really contemplating this or is it just a random boast that she’s playing with? We now start to get some clarity on what actually happened in her early life: some of it is ugly but Joan clearly took these events and turned herself into a sponger, a spendthrift and a user. She became a stealer, of things and of people. This is a tale that is thoughtful, sometimes sad, often raw and unsparing and occasionally brutal. It’s a powerful and unrestrained account of how the events in someone’s life can have a profound effect their future. It’s one of the most enthralling accounts I’ve read in a very long time, I just couldn’t put it down.

I really enjoyed Lisa Taddeo’s book Three Women, a real life account of the sex lives of three American woman. That was a strong, honest piece of reporting – but this book impacted me more, I think. I really hope this book achieves the success I believe it deserves, it’s a mind-opening tour de force.

Ever since I read Three Women and heard that there would be a novel, I put this on my tbr list. This is one of the strongest new literary voices I've come across in a while. However, I didn't like what it was telling me. And I knew I wouldn't like the story in Animal. To me Animal was hands down the most repulsive book I've ever read. The problem is it's also very very good - ridiculously well written and constructed.

I've never been so unsure as to whether I should recommend a book or warn people of it, but now that a few days have passed since I finished it I would lean towards the latter. I see it as a modern-day Lolita that will divide opinions. Having read a few interviews, it seems to have been a cathartic experience for the author. For me it contains too many triggers, there are so many incredibly unsettling scenes in the book and when I finished it I felt physically ill and like I've been hit by a tornado.

The book addresses important topics like gender issues and abuse and it will lend itself to many heated discussion in book groups, however if you're sensitive it can take a while to shake it off and you will never be able to "unsee" the things described in the book. I don't think I'll read another book by the author in future unless she starts telling a story I actually want to read because she's an absolutely gifted writer. I've given it 3 stars but in my opinion it's impossible to rate.

Animal by Lisa Taddeo is a book you won’t forget reading in a hurry. It is the story of Joan - a single woman with a history of relationships with married men and men that don’t treat her very well - who moves to Los Angeles from New York when her married ex shoots himself in front of her in a crowded restaurant. This is not the first shocking traumatic event that has happened to her and it is not the last. We learn that she has moved to Los Angeles to find someone and the story follows her as she tries to do this whilst also flashing back to her childhood and the traumas she suffered as a child. This is not an easy read. It is in fact very uncomfortable to read as Taddeo highlights the ‘little rapes’, sexual harrassment, objectification and sexual assaults that women face. There is no doubt that Taddeo is a very talented writer. I devoured ‘Three Women’ and expected to do the same with ‘Animal’. For me, this was not as compelling a read - around midway through I was having to force myself to pick it up again but that is also because it is such an intense, uncomfortable reading experience. There is no light relief in this story. If you enjoy the work of Ottessa Moshfegh and also loved ‘Three Women’, then definitely give this a read. Trigger warning for sexual assault, rape and baby loss.

An incredibly audacious debut novel. This is brutal and unflinching, ablaze with female rage and the insidious trauma and violence of rape culture. Highly recommend!

Animal is a novel about a woman who leaves New York City for California after a man shoots himself in front of her. When one married man she was having an affair with shoots himself in a restaurant in front of her and another married man she was having an affair with, Joan leaves New York for California, on the hunt for a woman named Alice. Convinced of her own depravity and hiding trauma in her past, Joan settles in a canyon with some unusual neighbours and finds a way to meet Alice, but there's also someone looking for her.

I found this a difficult book to get into, thanks to the style and the tendency to jump between the present and Joan's recollections of various points in her life. There were some strangely described moments—like Joan's initial impressions of Alice's appearance—that may have been for effect but gave a weird tone to me. On the other hand, the narrative—self-described 'depraved' woman goes looking for someone possibly to do with her past, which she as the narrator is being cagey about—is an interesting, straightforward concept, and the pace of the revelations and action was good. I did want to find out what happened, but at the same time, I wasn't really drawn into the book, and sometimes it felt like it was trying a bit too hard to make Joan seem edgy and shocking.

Animal is an interesting novel that just didn't quite come together for me. The book—and the character of Joan—looks at trauma and its impact on someone's life in an effective way, though the sex and violence in it might put off some people (and it's definitely a book that could do with some warnings for sexual assault and violence if you're going to read it).

This wasn’t for me at all. I didn’t enjoy reading this story, tried a few times but not my cup of tea.

Adored Taddeos “three women” so this was a highly anticipated read for me. There is no question that the powerful writing of Three Women is very evident again.
The lead character Joan is unapologetically damaged and is leading as she herself says a depraved life. Jumping into unsatisfactory relationships with married men with little care for the families she devastated, we come to learn that her own childhood trauma may hold the secret to this.
The sex is raw, real and graphic, and at times truly unpleasant. There are certainly scenes in this book that truly shocked me and were utterly uncomfortable to read.
And fiction should be like that at times. Like Three women, Taddeo does not shy away from uncomfortable and painful reading. As a result this book would not be for everyone. And it would be remiss if me to widely recommend it as I think it needs the right audience. And this book certainly has that audience.

I have been thinking for a day or so how to review this book, or more accurately, how I felt about it. Because it's not very straightforward.
I loved the writing, the language, the sentence construction. The beginning was incredible and I felt like I'd never want to put it down. I read it in a day.
However, I didnt enjoy reading it. Its obviously accomplished and written by a bestselling writer. I feel sure this will be another bestseller for Taddeo and probably receive prizes. But I didn't like any of the characters (this is deliberate I'm sure, the protagonist introduces herself as depraved), I didnt understand anyone's motivation and everyone just spoke so terribly to everyone else. I kept reading so I could find out the big secret about her parents death. Then towards the end of the novel is a horrifying scene....no spoilers but it involves coyotes attacking a dog....that genuinely made me feel sick and it felt so out of place. Like the whole book took a turn there, then there is a (super gross) murder. My reaction to the coyote scene is probably coloured by personal experience but I am interested to find out other readers reaction because honestly I hated it.
So I definitely have mixed feelings about this one. Lisa Taddeo is obviously a brilliant writer. I read the books quickly and there were parts I found moving and memorable. But overall I also did not enjoy reading it and wouldn't enthusiastically recommend it to every reader.