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Animal

The ‘compulsive’ (Guardian) new novel from the author of THREE WOMEN

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Animal

By: Lisa Taddeo
Narrated by: Emma Roberts
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Bloomsbury presents Animal by Lisa Taddeo, read by Emma Roberts.

'Joan is an unforgettable anti-heroine. I don't think I'll ever stop thinking about her’ Elizabeth Day

'So insanely good and true and twisted it’ll make your teeth sweat' Olivia Wilde

'Like a series of grenades exploding' Marian Keyes

I drove myself out of New York City where a man shot himself in front of me. He was a gluttonous man and when his blood came out it looked like the blood of a pig.

That’s a cruel thing to think, I know. He did it in a restaurant where I was having dinner with another man, another married man.

Do you see how this is going? But I wasn’t always that way.

I am depraved. I hope you like me.

——————

A 2021 Highlight for: Guardian – Sunday Express – Independent – New Statesman – Evening Standard – Cosmopolitan – Red – Grazia – Daily Mail – Daily Express – The Week – Irish Times – i – The Sun©2021 Simon & Schuster Crime Thrillers Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Romantic Suspense Suspense Thriller Thriller & Suspense Fiction Crime Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

One of my favourite authors of all time (Dua Lipa)
Few writers can match Taddeo’s swagger on sentence-level. She has a knack for the unexpected, shocking phrase that feels nonchalantly tossed, like dynamite to a fire
A compulsive read. Taddeo’s prose glitters with all the dark wit and flashes of insight that readers and critics admired in Three Women . . . Like Coel’s I May Destroy You, Animal is unafraid to wrestle with big questions about sexual empowerment and consent, and doesn’t pretend to have found neat answers
American Psycho for the #MeToo generation
Propulsive, fiercely confident . . . Joan’s voice is so sharp and magnetic that the reader will follow her anywhere
Joan’s fury feels fitting, in a new age of righteous rage and brave honesty in female-driven and female-penned art, from Promising Young Women and I May Destroy You, to Raven Leilani’s Luster
An explosive, visceral story about childhood trauma, sexual violence, sisterhood and grief. In vivid, unforgiving prose, Taddeo charts the fate of its unforgettable antiheroine, Joan
A raging, funny and fierce thriller with a protagonist whose life force, against extraordinary odds — always in the gaze and sometimes the grasp of predatory, abusive men — is a thing of wonder
This summer’s most-hyped book and more than lives up to the buzz . . . A dark, disturbing masterpiece, full of righteous female rage – every word roars right off the page
A fever dream of a read . . . Intense, disturbing and provoking, it’s also a book that’s filled with humanity, sensuality and, in the end, love and hope . . . Read, give to your friends and discuss at length
Wow. Dark, hypnotic and horrifying, with a central protagonist in Joan who demands your deepest empathy despite every transgression, it’s brilliantly written and expertly done. I loved it (Harriet Tyce, bestselling author of Blood Orange and The Lies You Told)
An outstanding novel, unnerving but brilliant (Samira Ahmed, BBC Radio 4 Front Row)
I don’t think there is a writer alive who writes about the interior lives of women with the raw truth and intensity [Taddeo] does . . . Fearless, sexy, brutal and just forensically observed. She is extraordinary (Jojo Moyes)
Raging, hilarious and utterly addictive
Scorching, unforgettable, stunningly beautiful, Animal blew my mind and has left me reeling (Clover Stroud)
[An] audacious debut novel
Reeling. Stunned. It is ablaze with rage and beauty. You’ve captured all the rage every woman has been suppressing her entire life. Mary Gaitskill eat your heart out (Sam Baker)
Riveting . . . Propulsive, erotic, emotional . . . Joan is almost impossible to look away from on every page
All stars
Most relevant
The narrative is seamless, a book I wanted to never end. Characterisation so finely tuned.

One of the most astonishing books of 2021

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The raw and ugly truth of what it means to be a woman in a man's world, dressed in well executed fiction. Not for the faint of heart, hard to stomach and absolutely bingeable - like a raw cooked steak oozing blood at a fine restaurant.

Raw, brutal, perfect.

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it's a tough book to read, it's slow for most of it but damn is it worth it.
A story of a woman's struggle with her relationship to men and her connection with other women.
Parts may be triggering, shocking and down right disgusting but I found overall the story to be wonderful.
somehow the author made it feel so real, I was her, I went through those events and now I just want to hug my Mum.

keep going

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Enjoyed the book. Good portrayal of feminine rage and love. The narrator's pronunciation of certain words was quite off putting. "Shone" kept being pronounced as "shown." strange!

Good book, weird pronunciation

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I consumed the whole thing in 48 hours straight. d
Devastating, addictive, brutal and brilliant!

Addictive.

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