“We the Animals” follows a life of a boy growing up in a mixed-marriage family alongside two older brothers. The novel portrays an unhealthy dynamic between the parents and the boys’ somewhat toxic behavior, mimicked from the father, towards their mother. The father is Puerto Rican and the mother is white, and together, they started their family life in Texas after a teenage pregnancy that forced them to quit school.
The youngest sibling describes his family life all up to his homosexual awakening, which he describes as “being made”, and his hospitalization in a psychiatric institution after his family discovers his writings of violent and homosexual fantasies.
The novel’s genre is bildungsroman, and it is said to have autobiographical aspects. It portrays the themes of sexual identity, of toxic family relations, as well as racial identity.
