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When We Were Animals
When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she wouldn't have guessed she would become a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: as a well-behaved and over-achieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon. On these nights, adolescents run wild, destroying everything in their path.
But Lumen resists. She promises her father she will never breach, she investigates the secrets behind the community's traditions, and finally unearths the stories buried in her family's past. As the mysteries mount, we realize we may not know Lumen--or Anne as she now calls herself--at all.
A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.
But Lumen resists. She promises her father she will never breach, she investigates the secrets behind the community's traditions, and finally unearths the stories buried in her family's past. As the mysteries mount, we realize we may not know Lumen--or Anne as she now calls herself--at all.
A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.
Audible Audio
First published April 21, 2015
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About the author
Joshua Gaylord
9 books121 followersJoshua Gaylord lives in New York. Since 2000, he has taught high school English at an Upper East Side prep school (a modern orthodox co-educational Yeshiva). Since 2002, he has also taught literature and cultural studies courses as an adjunct professor at the New School. Prior to coming to New York, he grew up in the heart of Orange County: Anaheim, home of Disneyland. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing, where his instructors included Bharati Mukherjee, Leonard Michaels and Maxine Hong Kingston. In 2000, he received his Master’s and Ph.D. in English at New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American and British literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 442 reviews
July 3, 2018
something terrible happened. i had a copy of this book in which i had folded over so many pages - scenes i wanted to revisit and passages i wanted to share when it came time to write this review. and then it was taken from me, never to be seen again. i got my hands on another copy, but it is all pristine and unfolded, and all the things i wanted to remember to quote or reference are lost to the world forever. #nerdworldproblems*
all i can say is that this is one of the best and most original coming-of-age novels i have ever read. it is told from the perspective of an adult woman named lumen looking back on her past - on the bizarre and violent rituals of her hometown that she's left behind in order to become what she is now - a responsible, devoted wife and mother, now going by "ann," surrounded by the banal and comfortable routine of american suburbia. but still waters run deep and bloody, and her secrets are atypical.
lumen comes from a small and isolated community in which teenagers succumb to something known as the "breach." it can strike at any time during puberty, and its duration fluctuates with the individual, but it happens during every full moon. under the effects of the breach, adolescents run wild, committing shameless, gleeful riots of violence, vandalism, and wild sexual activities. more than simple high-spirited abandon, these are episodes of irresistible compulsion and an unavoidable rite of passage. during the full moon's cycle, doors are locked and streets are emptied except for the wilding teens, who frequently stumble home after their nocturnal adventures naked, bruised, trailing clouds of excess and conquest.
and lumen wants no part of it.
lumen is a good girl - devoted to her father and the mythology of her deceased mother. she has been told that her mother is the only person to never have gone through the breach, and she is stubbornly resisting her own transition and its accompanying unseemly behaviors. gaylord's depiction of female adolescence is eerily spot-on in its treatment of menarche, sexuality, and lumen's attraction to two different boys, who represent two different paths. and the broader depiction of the adolescent experience is also handled beautifully. here, the typical teenage impulses of rebellion, self-destructiveness and selfishness are amplified in glorious gothic fabulism - a howling and wild-eyed rumspringa, both sanctioned and feared by the older residents, who have been there and remember both the freedom and the taste of its blood.
this is more than mere allegory. it is much broader than the "chaos that manifests when rules are suspended" theme of Lord of the Flies and much more than the simplistic sexual symbolism in things like Twilight, with its tides of temptation and repression and control. and if all that weren't enough, he slaps a whole other layer on top of this in the shape of family/town history filled with seeeecrets and an explosive ending that will compel lumen to flee her town and her past and eventually land her in the carefully domestic good housekeeping stage of her life.
it's so much, but it reads effortlessly, as though it's easy to create an entirely new mythos illuminating the darkness of adolescent development.
i recently learned that he is no longer married to Megan Abbott, which makes me very sad, even though it's not like i know them or anything. but it just made sense to me. their books do the same kinds of things very well - they both write lyrically gritty evocations of adolescence, particularly female adolescence, that celebrate all the dark emotional tides and turbulence in a way that few other authors manage to pull off convincingly. i hope their books can remain friends, at least. this book would also be really good friends with Bones & All - both are sort of coming-of-age novels with a dark fantasy bent, although this one has sharper teeth. which is ironic considering that one is about cannibalism, but it's not handled with the same kind of ferocity on display here. you and this book in a dark alley?? this book would cut you.
i wish i had quotes for you here; there were so many excellent, poignant moments i had prepared to share, but i'm too dispirited to try to track them down again, although i will definitely reread this book. for now, you want quotes, you gotta find them yourself. read this book, and check out his zombie-but-not-really books under his Alden Bell pen name: The Reapers Are the Angels and Exit Kingdom.
i love love love this book
*hashtag shamelessly stolen from kelly
come to my blog!
all i can say is that this is one of the best and most original coming-of-age novels i have ever read. it is told from the perspective of an adult woman named lumen looking back on her past - on the bizarre and violent rituals of her hometown that she's left behind in order to become what she is now - a responsible, devoted wife and mother, now going by "ann," surrounded by the banal and comfortable routine of american suburbia. but still waters run deep and bloody, and her secrets are atypical.
lumen comes from a small and isolated community in which teenagers succumb to something known as the "breach." it can strike at any time during puberty, and its duration fluctuates with the individual, but it happens during every full moon. under the effects of the breach, adolescents run wild, committing shameless, gleeful riots of violence, vandalism, and wild sexual activities. more than simple high-spirited abandon, these are episodes of irresistible compulsion and an unavoidable rite of passage. during the full moon's cycle, doors are locked and streets are emptied except for the wilding teens, who frequently stumble home after their nocturnal adventures naked, bruised, trailing clouds of excess and conquest.
and lumen wants no part of it.
lumen is a good girl - devoted to her father and the mythology of her deceased mother. she has been told that her mother is the only person to never have gone through the breach, and she is stubbornly resisting her own transition and its accompanying unseemly behaviors. gaylord's depiction of female adolescence is eerily spot-on in its treatment of menarche, sexuality, and lumen's attraction to two different boys, who represent two different paths. and the broader depiction of the adolescent experience is also handled beautifully. here, the typical teenage impulses of rebellion, self-destructiveness and selfishness are amplified in glorious gothic fabulism - a howling and wild-eyed rumspringa, both sanctioned and feared by the older residents, who have been there and remember both the freedom and the taste of its blood.
this is more than mere allegory. it is much broader than the "chaos that manifests when rules are suspended" theme of Lord of the Flies and much more than the simplistic sexual symbolism in things like Twilight, with its tides of temptation and repression and control. and if all that weren't enough, he slaps a whole other layer on top of this in the shape of family/town history filled with seeeecrets and an explosive ending that will compel lumen to flee her town and her past and eventually land her in the carefully domestic good housekeeping stage of her life.
it's so much, but it reads effortlessly, as though it's easy to create an entirely new mythos illuminating the darkness of adolescent development.
i recently learned that he is no longer married to Megan Abbott, which makes me very sad, even though it's not like i know them or anything. but it just made sense to me. their books do the same kinds of things very well - they both write lyrically gritty evocations of adolescence, particularly female adolescence, that celebrate all the dark emotional tides and turbulence in a way that few other authors manage to pull off convincingly. i hope their books can remain friends, at least. this book would also be really good friends with Bones & All - both are sort of coming-of-age novels with a dark fantasy bent, although this one has sharper teeth. which is ironic considering that one is about cannibalism, but it's not handled with the same kind of ferocity on display here. you and this book in a dark alley?? this book would cut you.
i wish i had quotes for you here; there were so many excellent, poignant moments i had prepared to share, but i'm too dispirited to try to track them down again, although i will definitely reread this book. for now, you want quotes, you gotta find them yourself. read this book, and check out his zombie-but-not-really books under his Alden Bell pen name: The Reapers Are the Angels and Exit Kingdom.
i love love love this book
*hashtag shamelessly stolen from kelly
come to my blog!
July 21, 2015
4.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/07/21/a...
After hearing about this book from so many people, I just knew I had to experience it for myself. And now that I’ve read it, When We Were Animals may well be the most interesting book to hit my shelves this year. I’m still finding it difficult to categorize this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which combines elements from a variety of genres including mystery, paranormal and horror.
Most of the story is told in retrospect, as protagonist Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood growing up in a small, quiet Midwestern town with a big, dark secret. For a few nights every month during the full moon, the town’s teenagers run naked and free through the streets like animals, seized by a mysterious and uncontrollable urge known as “breaching”. Every resident of this town has gone through it and know to also expect it in their children, which typically coincides with puberty and lasts about a year. Breaching is just something everybody goes through, an unavoidable and natural fact of life about growing up in this town.
But is it really inevitable? Lumen hardly remembers her mother, who died when she was very little, but she is intrigued by the stories her father tells, about how Lumen’s mother never went breach. Always the good girl, the high achiever who never gets in trouble or gives cause for worry, Lumen makes a promise to her father that she will never breach either, determined not to succumb to the call of her baser instincts and join her peers in the unrestrained orgies of sex, violence and wild abandon during the full moons.
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to figure out When We Were Animals is an allegory for growing up, specifically for the tumultuous period when a young person transitions from adolescence to adulthood. What fascinated me is the story’s ability to illustrate a range of perceptions towards the concept of breaching. Residents seem both proud and ashamed that such a phenomenon is unique to their town, and parents of breaching teenagers treat it with a mixture reverence and trepidation while children both dread and look forward to the day when they too will be called. It is beautiful and magical, but also messy and frightening. What everyone in Lumen’s hometown can agree on though, is that breaching is an important rite of passage – once you enter and emerge from the other side, childhood ends and the journey to adulthood begins.
What singlehandedly made this book so great was the character of Lumen, whose personality gives this coming-of-age story an even more unique spin. Small and unassuming, our protagonist isn’t someone who would stand out in a crowd. At school, she would be the one hanging out on the edges of a group, the girl you don’t really notice is there. Ironically, the fact that she’s different from the other kids just makes her even more invisible, and being a late bloomer doesn’t help either, widening the divide between her and her peers.
Lumen’s introspective nature means that this is a very personal narrative, light on plot but heavy on character. She loves to read and learn, and her very unusual way of looking at things made it so that I hung on her every word. This story isn’t the kind where a lot of things happen, and instead emphasizes internal dialogue over action. But I was captivated by it nonetheless. In Lumen, I saw not only a teenager struggling to find her identity, but also a girl trying to reconcile her desires to fit in and yet still stand out from the rest. It’s a motivating factor in all that she does, whether it’s asking her dad for stories about her mom or looking up definitions of her peculiar name. It shines a new light on her determination not to go breach, which becomes more than just a way to connect to the mother she never knew. Not breaching ultimately becomes something she hopes can define her, an achievement she can call her own and make a part of herself.
I was completely charmed by Lumen, who is now an adult in a new town with a new name with her own family, telling us about her past. This is what made the audiobook such a pleasure to listen to. The only downside was sometimes not knowing whether we’re in the past or present, since the transitions weren’t always obvious in the audio, but the narration was simply fantastic. My praise goes to narrator Suehyla El Attar bringing Lumen to life. Her voice became the character’s voice, and after that it was just a matter of letting go and allowing the story to transport you to another time, another place.
At times eerie and unsettling, at others powerful and heartwarming, When We Were Animals has a lot to say about topics like independence and teenage rebellion and peer pressure. There are the moments that disturbed and horrified me, many of which are related to the descriptions of what goes on when the teenagers were breaching, but there were also scenes that touched me, especially those featuring the closeness between Lumen and her father. This an absolutely fantastic and well executed story about the stark realities of human nature and growing up. I’m still reeling from the rollercoaster of emotions.
After hearing about this book from so many people, I just knew I had to experience it for myself. And now that I’ve read it, When We Were Animals may well be the most interesting book to hit my shelves this year. I’m still finding it difficult to categorize this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which combines elements from a variety of genres including mystery, paranormal and horror.
Most of the story is told in retrospect, as protagonist Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood growing up in a small, quiet Midwestern town with a big, dark secret. For a few nights every month during the full moon, the town’s teenagers run naked and free through the streets like animals, seized by a mysterious and uncontrollable urge known as “breaching”. Every resident of this town has gone through it and know to also expect it in their children, which typically coincides with puberty and lasts about a year. Breaching is just something everybody goes through, an unavoidable and natural fact of life about growing up in this town.
But is it really inevitable? Lumen hardly remembers her mother, who died when she was very little, but she is intrigued by the stories her father tells, about how Lumen’s mother never went breach. Always the good girl, the high achiever who never gets in trouble or gives cause for worry, Lumen makes a promise to her father that she will never breach either, determined not to succumb to the call of her baser instincts and join her peers in the unrestrained orgies of sex, violence and wild abandon during the full moons.
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to figure out When We Were Animals is an allegory for growing up, specifically for the tumultuous period when a young person transitions from adolescence to adulthood. What fascinated me is the story’s ability to illustrate a range of perceptions towards the concept of breaching. Residents seem both proud and ashamed that such a phenomenon is unique to their town, and parents of breaching teenagers treat it with a mixture reverence and trepidation while children both dread and look forward to the day when they too will be called. It is beautiful and magical, but also messy and frightening. What everyone in Lumen’s hometown can agree on though, is that breaching is an important rite of passage – once you enter and emerge from the other side, childhood ends and the journey to adulthood begins.
What singlehandedly made this book so great was the character of Lumen, whose personality gives this coming-of-age story an even more unique spin. Small and unassuming, our protagonist isn’t someone who would stand out in a crowd. At school, she would be the one hanging out on the edges of a group, the girl you don’t really notice is there. Ironically, the fact that she’s different from the other kids just makes her even more invisible, and being a late bloomer doesn’t help either, widening the divide between her and her peers.
Lumen’s introspective nature means that this is a very personal narrative, light on plot but heavy on character. She loves to read and learn, and her very unusual way of looking at things made it so that I hung on her every word. This story isn’t the kind where a lot of things happen, and instead emphasizes internal dialogue over action. But I was captivated by it nonetheless. In Lumen, I saw not only a teenager struggling to find her identity, but also a girl trying to reconcile her desires to fit in and yet still stand out from the rest. It’s a motivating factor in all that she does, whether it’s asking her dad for stories about her mom or looking up definitions of her peculiar name. It shines a new light on her determination not to go breach, which becomes more than just a way to connect to the mother she never knew. Not breaching ultimately becomes something she hopes can define her, an achievement she can call her own and make a part of herself.
I was completely charmed by Lumen, who is now an adult in a new town with a new name with her own family, telling us about her past. This is what made the audiobook such a pleasure to listen to. The only downside was sometimes not knowing whether we’re in the past or present, since the transitions weren’t always obvious in the audio, but the narration was simply fantastic. My praise goes to narrator Suehyla El Attar bringing Lumen to life. Her voice became the character’s voice, and after that it was just a matter of letting go and allowing the story to transport you to another time, another place.
At times eerie and unsettling, at others powerful and heartwarming, When We Were Animals has a lot to say about topics like independence and teenage rebellion and peer pressure. There are the moments that disturbed and horrified me, many of which are related to the descriptions of what goes on when the teenagers were breaching, but there were also scenes that touched me, especially those featuring the closeness between Lumen and her father. This an absolutely fantastic and well executed story about the stark realities of human nature and growing up. I’m still reeling from the rollercoaster of emotions.
July 20, 2015
The problem with audiobooks is that you can't highlight the beautiful passages, and when you're finished, you can't easily go back and read and re-read your favourite parts. So it's a bit of a shame I listened to When We Were Animals rather than read a physical copy (as I do with 98% of my books), because this book is stuffed to the brim with melancholy, poignant, bittersweet moments. And it was wonderful.
I wouldn't call this one a surprise, exactly, because I'd seen a few glowing reviews and I have a strong fondness for coming-of-age stories, but it still wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I was expecting more horror, werewolves, violence (but told in a more literary way than your standard genre book), but what this really is is a compelling portrait of adolescent angst with a slight supernatural spin that just heightens that already intense experience.
Lumen is a flawed but fascinating protagonist, and because the narrator of the audiobook is obviously a woman, I completely forgot that her character was written by a man. She just does the "good girl gone bad" transformation in such a realistic and non-cliche way that it's hard to believe Joshua Gaylord hasn't gone through a teenage girl's life himself.
For all of its exciting topics and unusual premise, When We Were Animals is not exactly what I would call fast-paced. It's gothic and dark but not horror; it has several "twists" but is by no means plot-driven. It's introspective and thought-provoking, and a perfect slow burn.
Blah. I wanted to write and gush about this one more, but there are only so many adjectives I can pull out here! All I can say is - if any of the above appeals to you, just read this! You can thank me later.
I wouldn't call this one a surprise, exactly, because I'd seen a few glowing reviews and I have a strong fondness for coming-of-age stories, but it still wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I was expecting more horror, werewolves, violence (but told in a more literary way than your standard genre book), but what this really is is a compelling portrait of adolescent angst with a slight supernatural spin that just heightens that already intense experience.
Lumen is a flawed but fascinating protagonist, and because the narrator of the audiobook is obviously a woman, I completely forgot that her character was written by a man. She just does the "good girl gone bad" transformation in such a realistic and non-cliche way that it's hard to believe Joshua Gaylord hasn't gone through a teenage girl's life himself.
For all of its exciting topics and unusual premise, When We Were Animals is not exactly what I would call fast-paced. It's gothic and dark but not horror; it has several "twists" but is by no means plot-driven. It's introspective and thought-provoking, and a perfect slow burn.
Blah. I wanted to write and gush about this one more, but there are only so many adjectives I can pull out here! All I can say is - if any of the above appeals to you, just read this! You can thank me later.
May 28, 2015
I'm reduced to one word descriptors. Lyrical, haunting, sexy, disturbing, dark, and oddly beautiful and dangerous. A smart and challenging anti-coming of age story that doesn't gloss over the damage we cause to ourselves and to who we love in the process of finding out who we are. I like to imagine that Lumen hangs out with Shirley Jackson's Merricat.
Does this qualify as a review? Ah, who cares. Read the book.
Does this qualify as a review? Ah, who cares. Read the book.
May 14, 2015
I love coming of age stories. I will gladly read the minutiae of a character's adolescence and their reflections on life and all that. I love relating to the characters, which happens a lot, since they are often awkward loners.
I also hate coming of age stories. They're painful in the way real life is painful. You like someone who doesn't know you exist, or doesn't like you back. You accidentally do really awkward things in front of people. People laugh at you. You die internally. The characters never end up with the person they like so hard throughout the book. The characters do such dumb things you want to punch them in the face. Something so awful happens to them you want to punch the author. They become sad somehow as adults.
When We Were Animals had all of the above. Except Lumen wasn't a character you wanted to punch in the face. She was likeable and smart, she didn't hate other people, and she didn't randomly do stupid things. The story is told by her as an adult, and while she is sort of one of those sad adults these characters can become, she's also not.
All the characters were real people. The bitchy popular girl, the best friend who makes new friends, the hot popular guy, and the bad seed were all here, and none of them were cardboard cutouts.
Coming of age stories are hardly ever satisfying. But I found that wasn't the case here. Although it did end on something of an abrupt note, it was also rather brilliant. I see what you did there, Mr Gaylord!
I really enjoyed reading this. I was initially skeptical since I didn't like Gaylord's first novel, but I loved the books written under his pen name. I love his writing and the way he can explain the most mundane things to make them beautiful. I mean, I kind of want to marry the guy, but I'm not a bigamist, so there's that. But I'll definitely be looking out for his future work.
I also hate coming of age stories. They're painful in the way real life is painful. You like someone who doesn't know you exist, or doesn't like you back. You accidentally do really awkward things in front of people. People laugh at you. You die internally. The characters never end up with the person they like so hard throughout the book. The characters do such dumb things you want to punch them in the face. Something so awful happens to them you want to punch the author. They become sad somehow as adults.
When We Were Animals had all of the above. Except Lumen wasn't a character you wanted to punch in the face. She was likeable and smart, she didn't hate other people, and she didn't randomly do stupid things. The story is told by her as an adult, and while she is sort of one of those sad adults these characters can become, she's also not.
All the characters were real people. The bitchy popular girl, the best friend who makes new friends, the hot popular guy, and the bad seed were all here, and none of them were cardboard cutouts.
Coming of age stories are hardly ever satisfying. But I found that wasn't the case here. Although it did end on something of an abrupt note, it was also rather brilliant. I see what you did there, Mr Gaylord!
I really enjoyed reading this. I was initially skeptical since I didn't like Gaylord's first novel, but I loved the books written under his pen name. I love his writing and the way he can explain the most mundane things to make them beautiful. I mean, I kind of want to marry the guy, but I'm not a bigamist, so there's that. But I'll definitely be looking out for his future work.
April 28, 2015
When We Were Animals is getting a lot of high praise, and it’s all true. Every bit of it.
And then there was me.
The writing in When We Were Animals is fantastic. I must read all the things by Joshua Gaylord. I’m happy to hear Alden Bell is a pseudonym for Joshua Gaylord because I have a copy of The Reapers are the Angels and I will be tearing into that soon.
I was hooked by When We Were Animals right away. Lumen grew up in a very strange town, and I loved the alternating timelines between her childhood and the present day. Somewhere in the middle, though, the book got stuck for me. There was no shift in time, no forward movement of the story, so much so that I almost didn’t finish reading it. I imagine readers with strong skills in literary analysis will have a field day with all of the allegory present in Lumen’s teenager years, but I’m not that reader.
I am glad I persevered and didn’t miss out on the ending of When We Were Animals. This is a special book that I won’t easily forget.
Like I said, this book is getting high praise and it is well deserved. For me, I just can’t get past the fact that I wanted to put it down.
And then there was me.
The writing in When We Were Animals is fantastic. I must read all the things by Joshua Gaylord. I’m happy to hear Alden Bell is a pseudonym for Joshua Gaylord because I have a copy of The Reapers are the Angels and I will be tearing into that soon.
I was hooked by When We Were Animals right away. Lumen grew up in a very strange town, and I loved the alternating timelines between her childhood and the present day. Somewhere in the middle, though, the book got stuck for me. There was no shift in time, no forward movement of the story, so much so that I almost didn’t finish reading it. I imagine readers with strong skills in literary analysis will have a field day with all of the allegory present in Lumen’s teenager years, but I’m not that reader.
I am glad I persevered and didn’t miss out on the ending of When We Were Animals. This is a special book that I won’t easily forget.
Like I said, this book is getting high praise and it is well deserved. For me, I just can’t get past the fact that I wanted to put it down.
September 29, 2015
It has been a LONG time since I have read a book that I actively did not like, but then there are books like When We Were Animals. I wish I was the kind of reviewer who could clearly and concisely describe what precise elements she did not like in meaningful ways, but a brief list will have to do.
A) This novel is clearly misogynist in its treatment, description and utilization of women. Moreover, there was not a SINGLE description of girlhood, female adolescence, or womanhood that felt remotely authentic or relatable.
B) What a wretched and spineless main character. I have yet to see an author so masterfully develop (read: BS) a character out of a complete non-character, devoid of dynamic, sincerity and true agency. Which brings me to...
C) The exposition was relentless, cliched, pretentious and SO self-important. It was tiresome, and ultimately, meaningless.
And lastly...
D) What was the point? Besides the id-stroking? I am truly astounded that it has received such high praise and positive reception.
A) This novel is clearly misogynist in its treatment, description and utilization of women. Moreover, there was not a SINGLE description of girlhood, female adolescence, or womanhood that felt remotely authentic or relatable.
B) What a wretched and spineless main character. I have yet to see an author so masterfully develop (read: BS) a character out of a complete non-character, devoid of dynamic, sincerity and true agency. Which brings me to...
C) The exposition was relentless, cliched, pretentious and SO self-important. It was tiresome, and ultimately, meaningless.
And lastly...
D) What was the point? Besides the id-stroking? I am truly astounded that it has received such high praise and positive reception.
September 23, 2016
One of the best and most original coming of age stories I have ever read. A combination of beautiful prose and horrifying situations. I'll be thinking about this one for awhile.
May 14, 2015
‘We live our lives by measures of weeks, months, years, but the creatures we truly are, those are exposed in fractions of moments.’
Lumen Fowler recounts her childhood growing up in a small town in the Midwest that is anything but ordinary. Children in this town, once they hit puberty, they go through what is called “breaching” where they let go of all social constraints and literally run wild and naked in the streets at night when the moon is full. Lumen is a bit of a late bloomer and believes herself to be different from the other children until she inevitably succumbs with the need to feel the night air on her skin.
First and foremost, this is not a werewolf story despite how the summary seems to allude to it. There is no physical transformation that these children undergo, only a surrendering to the madness that we’ve all felt stirring inside us at one time or another. The fact that this all occurs beneath the light of the full moon seems to be pure happenstance. When We Were Animals brought to life the horrors of coming of age and learning to navigate the trickiness betwixt childhood and adulthood.
‘…she was some nightmarish inversion of the person who had played in the sprinklers with me years before. This girl was raw, viperous, glutted on nature and night. They all were. Like coyotes, they made mockery, with their bleating voices, of those who needed light in order to feel safe.
And yet they were all too human.’
This was one of the most exquisitely written books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Vibrant and completely full of (animalistic) life. It’s not a traditional horror story, however, it is a very simplistic horror that we’ve all suffered through in life. It details a savageness; a rawness. It was incredible. The plot itself is quite meandering, just as growing up seems to take forever to get through. Also, like a typical teenager that can’t wait to grow up and for life to finally happen (of which it never seems to meet your expectations), this story never amounted to anything. I kept anticipating something monumental that never came. Still, this story of growing up is well worth the effort.
‘In the daylight you scoff at the shadows you cowered from the night before.’
I received this book free from a Giveaway in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Lumen Fowler recounts her childhood growing up in a small town in the Midwest that is anything but ordinary. Children in this town, once they hit puberty, they go through what is called “breaching” where they let go of all social constraints and literally run wild and naked in the streets at night when the moon is full. Lumen is a bit of a late bloomer and believes herself to be different from the other children until she inevitably succumbs with the need to feel the night air on her skin.
First and foremost, this is not a werewolf story despite how the summary seems to allude to it. There is no physical transformation that these children undergo, only a surrendering to the madness that we’ve all felt stirring inside us at one time or another. The fact that this all occurs beneath the light of the full moon seems to be pure happenstance. When We Were Animals brought to life the horrors of coming of age and learning to navigate the trickiness betwixt childhood and adulthood.
‘…she was some nightmarish inversion of the person who had played in the sprinklers with me years before. This girl was raw, viperous, glutted on nature and night. They all were. Like coyotes, they made mockery, with their bleating voices, of those who needed light in order to feel safe.
And yet they were all too human.’
This was one of the most exquisitely written books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Vibrant and completely full of (animalistic) life. It’s not a traditional horror story, however, it is a very simplistic horror that we’ve all suffered through in life. It details a savageness; a rawness. It was incredible. The plot itself is quite meandering, just as growing up seems to take forever to get through. Also, like a typical teenager that can’t wait to grow up and for life to finally happen (of which it never seems to meet your expectations), this story never amounted to anything. I kept anticipating something monumental that never came. Still, this story of growing up is well worth the effort.
‘In the daylight you scoff at the shadows you cowered from the night before.’
I received this book free from a Giveaway in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
July 4, 2015
For most of When We Were Animals, Joshua Gaylord pulls off the trick of writing a hybrid werewolf and coming-of-age-novel that is clever, subtle and utterly compelling.
Not since Joss Whedon used a werewolf in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the supernatural being used to comment on the transformation and confusing time of being a teenager been so well done.
When the children in her small town hit a certain age, they begin to undergo a type of transformation. Three nights a month, then become wild, savage -- shedding clothes and societal norms to run in the woods and do things that animals do. Lumen is a bit of a late bloomer, not undergoing the process until later in her teenage years, though there is one particular boy who is willing to try and help her along with the change.
There's also something that happened -- a twist that Gaylord hides right in plain sight for much of the novel. That is, until he smacks you squarely between the eyes in the novel's final chapters as if to say, "You should have been playing closer attention to what the left hand was going, but I had you completely distracted with the fireworks I had in my right hand." It's a nice twist that more than makes up for the fact that I felt the novel was starting to lose a bit of momentum once Lumen transforms and we see her life from that point forward.
When We Were Animals is a surprisingly fun, entertaining and thought provoking novel. It's also of one of those books that has passages that are so eloquent you can't help but go back to read them again, allowing them to wash back over you and marveling and Gaylord's technique and storytelling.
Not since Joss Whedon used a werewolf in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the supernatural being used to comment on the transformation and confusing time of being a teenager been so well done.
When the children in her small town hit a certain age, they begin to undergo a type of transformation. Three nights a month, then become wild, savage -- shedding clothes and societal norms to run in the woods and do things that animals do. Lumen is a bit of a late bloomer, not undergoing the process until later in her teenage years, though there is one particular boy who is willing to try and help her along with the change.
There's also something that happened -- a twist that Gaylord hides right in plain sight for much of the novel. That is, until he smacks you squarely between the eyes in the novel's final chapters as if to say, "You should have been playing closer attention to what the left hand was going, but I had you completely distracted with the fireworks I had in my right hand." It's a nice twist that more than makes up for the fact that I felt the novel was starting to lose a bit of momentum once Lumen transforms and we see her life from that point forward.
When We Were Animals is a surprisingly fun, entertaining and thought provoking novel. It's also of one of those books that has passages that are so eloquent you can't help but go back to read them again, allowing them to wash back over you and marveling and Gaylord's technique and storytelling.
March 19, 2017
This book was a bit of a surprise. It's predominantly about a young girl and her experience taking part in her small town's 'breaching' ritual, in which all the teenagers strip naked and run around the town like animals, fighting for dominance, and well, fornicating like rabbits under the full moon...
That might sound like a bit of a gimmick story, but I have to say the writing was excellent and it really sold the concept to me. The many references to the moon on the blurb led me to believe I was getting some kind of werewolf story, but it's actually just a dark, literary coming of age tale with this weird fictional ritual as a backdrop where the kids are taken over by a more animalistic mind set.
I'd really like to see more literary fiction taking more out of the box concepts like this one, because this really worked for me and just screams originiality.
Definite recommendation 4 Stars ****
That might sound like a bit of a gimmick story, but I have to say the writing was excellent and it really sold the concept to me. The many references to the moon on the blurb led me to believe I was getting some kind of werewolf story, but it's actually just a dark, literary coming of age tale with this weird fictional ritual as a backdrop where the kids are taken over by a more animalistic mind set.
I'd really like to see more literary fiction taking more out of the box concepts like this one, because this really worked for me and just screams originiality.
Definite recommendation 4 Stars ****
October 30, 2015
3 1/2 stars
On the surface this book is a YA story that takes on a strange phenomena, something the sleepy Midwestern town keeps secret from outsiders.
Starting at puberty, all the town’s teenagers “breach” during the nights of the full moon. They rip their clothes off; destroy themselves and property; have indiscriminate sex with each other, only to wake up bloody and bruised the next morning.
What really happens during the nights of the full moon?
Why do the parents and town allow this to take place?
Have you ever watched a documentary about primates and how they challenge the alpha male, seek mates and express dominance/submission in the troop? If you have then you will have a pretty good idea what to expect of the behavior of the teenagers that breach during full moon.
The problem with this seemingly straightforward gothic coming of age novel is this: It does not allow you to stay safe on its superficial surface, it drags you down into an uncomfortable dark place where it is so easy to understand why teenagers cut themselves, why they hurt and hate themselves.
Lumen our protagonist, faces the fears and issues most teenagers face but with the added weight of trying to be an exemplary over-achiever child to her single parent father. She will NOT breach, she will not run wild like the others, and she will not disappoint her father.
At times I felt as if the story was overly sexual in nature, other times overly simplistic only made up of the teenage angst and frustrations disguised in pretty words. But I can’t deny the beautiful prose, the bizarre feel of the story and depth of insight it showed and it had me completely in its thrall.
I still don’t know how I really feel about this book. It may not be for everyone but for me it was a compulsively readable, disturbing story with so so many layers.
On the surface this book is a YA story that takes on a strange phenomena, something the sleepy Midwestern town keeps secret from outsiders.
Starting at puberty, all the town’s teenagers “breach” during the nights of the full moon. They rip their clothes off; destroy themselves and property; have indiscriminate sex with each other, only to wake up bloody and bruised the next morning.
What really happens during the nights of the full moon?
Why do the parents and town allow this to take place?
Have you ever watched a documentary about primates and how they challenge the alpha male, seek mates and express dominance/submission in the troop? If you have then you will have a pretty good idea what to expect of the behavior of the teenagers that breach during full moon.
The problem with this seemingly straightforward gothic coming of age novel is this: It does not allow you to stay safe on its superficial surface, it drags you down into an uncomfortable dark place where it is so easy to understand why teenagers cut themselves, why they hurt and hate themselves.
Lumen our protagonist, faces the fears and issues most teenagers face but with the added weight of trying to be an exemplary over-achiever child to her single parent father. She will NOT breach, she will not run wild like the others, and she will not disappoint her father.
At times I felt as if the story was overly sexual in nature, other times overly simplistic only made up of the teenage angst and frustrations disguised in pretty words. But I can’t deny the beautiful prose, the bizarre feel of the story and depth of insight it showed and it had me completely in its thrall.
I still don’t know how I really feel about this book. It may not be for everyone but for me it was a compulsively readable, disturbing story with so so many layers.
June 29, 2015
So this book is about a town where teenagers "breach" during the full moon, shedding their clothes and running wild through the town, fighting and f***ing, while adults and children hide behind locked doors.
And it somehow manages to be boring.
Oh, no, I get that it's all metaphorical for actual coming-of-age transformations, but it was still boring.
The main character, Lumen, even telling her story from years later, is melodramatic, angsty, and just boring.
I skimmed some sections. I kept waiting for some big reveal, but even major events managed to feel lackluster.
Edit: I was thinking that maybe I'm being too harsh with only giving this book 2 stars, because the writing itself is pretty good. Then I realized that is what bothers me. The writing is subdued and pretty, but the subject matter is rougher, earthier. While I assume that contrast is intentional, it just doesn't work for me.
And it somehow manages to be boring.
Oh, no, I get that it's all metaphorical for actual coming-of-age transformations, but it was still boring.
The main character, Lumen, even telling her story from years later, is melodramatic, angsty, and just boring.
I skimmed some sections. I kept waiting for some big reveal, but even major events managed to feel lackluster.
Edit: I was thinking that maybe I'm being too harsh with only giving this book 2 stars, because the writing itself is pretty good. Then I realized that is what bothers me. The writing is subdued and pretty, but the subject matter is rougher, earthier. While I assume that contrast is intentional, it just doesn't work for me.
May 20, 2015
I know I’m in the minority here with my dislike of this book. It has some fantastic reviews and 4 point something rating, but it was just not for me.
I felt Lumen’s voice was stilted and she’s an odd and lost character. I felt nothing for her and since I wasn’t invested in her at all I got bored. Really bored.
I didn’t find he story particularly mysterious, or shocking, just weird. Didn’t do it for me.
I felt Lumen’s voice was stilted and she’s an odd and lost character. I felt nothing for her and since I wasn’t invested in her at all I got bored. Really bored.
I didn’t find he story particularly mysterious, or shocking, just weird. Didn’t do it for me.
August 21, 2015
This is the best book I've read this year. Which is saying something because, according to my Goodreads count, I've read 72 others.
Lumen Fowler recounts her adolescence spent in a small town with a strange custom -- at a certain age, the teenagers run naked and wild through the streets during each full moon in a tradition known locally as "breaching."
I was first interested in this book because it was on a lot of "most anticipated" lists and because it seemed to offer thriller-like elements, of which I am admittedly fond. But what I had expected to be a sort of YA-ish werewolf-y mixed bag amounted, instead, to a coming-of-age novel that truly, truly, ohmygodtruly dazzled me. Frenetic and roughly-hewn, yet fiercely honest and emotive, I was crying big, sloppy tears by the final chapters. Tied together with perfect prose and perfect pacing and perfectly-crafted characters, there is really absolutely no reason for anybody not to read this book.
Lumen Fowler recounts her adolescence spent in a small town with a strange custom -- at a certain age, the teenagers run naked and wild through the streets during each full moon in a tradition known locally as "breaching."
I was first interested in this book because it was on a lot of "most anticipated" lists and because it seemed to offer thriller-like elements, of which I am admittedly fond. But what I had expected to be a sort of YA-ish werewolf-y mixed bag amounted, instead, to a coming-of-age novel that truly, truly, ohmygodtruly dazzled me. Frenetic and roughly-hewn, yet fiercely honest and emotive, I was crying big, sloppy tears by the final chapters. Tied together with perfect prose and perfect pacing and perfectly-crafted characters, there is really absolutely no reason for anybody not to read this book.
September 22, 2017
I was forewarned, way before I started this book, that it would test all the beliefs that we take as a given.
I was forewarned, so I though that I was ready; That I could handle it all.
But that was a big joke.
This book did push way pass the limits we deem as acceptable and then it pushed some more.
Not only did it laugh at the silly limits we place but it made me question them.
I though about Darwin and his theory about our connection with animals.
Ever since Darwin brought around the theory of evolution, we have been fascinated and some what opinionated about our supposed connection with animals.
The question is do we as humans resemble animals in any way?Is there an animal inside us that we suppress, with layers of civilization, manners and pointless society rules?
when we connect ourselves with animals
sometimes it is in a derogatory manner.
son of a bitch. such an arse.
and sometimes it is a praise.
he is an animal in bed.
Needless to say, I was utterly taken up with this book, so much so that I found my self becoming slightly savage when around with people. Like, there where moments when somebody pissed me off and I really badly wanted to bite them. (a habit I thought I had conquered, a long time ago.)
And that I think is the best sorts of books. The ones that leaves you a little changed after you are done with it.
I was forewarned, so I though that I was ready; That I could handle it all.
But that was a big joke.
This book did push way pass the limits we deem as acceptable and then it pushed some more.
Not only did it laugh at the silly limits we place but it made me question them.
I though about Darwin and his theory about our connection with animals.
Ever since Darwin brought around the theory of evolution, we have been fascinated and some what opinionated about our supposed connection with animals.
The question is do we as humans resemble animals in any way?Is there an animal inside us that we suppress, with layers of civilization, manners and pointless society rules?
when we connect ourselves with animals
sometimes it is in a derogatory manner.
son of a bitch. such an arse.
and sometimes it is a praise.
he is an animal in bed.
Needless to say, I was utterly taken up with this book, so much so that I found my self becoming slightly savage when around with people. Like, there where moments when somebody pissed me off and I really badly wanted to bite them. (a habit I thought I had conquered, a long time ago.)
And that I think is the best sorts of books. The ones that leaves you a little changed after you are done with it.
May 20, 2015
It is a strange old world when a book that is about teenagers running literally wild is the most beautifully written novel you have read in a long time. But that is how "When we were Animals" was for me.
It drew me in like magic - Lumen is a beacon, her story strange and full of wonder, a coming of age tale set in a small town somewhere that could be anywhere but where puberty happens differently. And yet in a lot of ways it happens just as it does everywhere else...
During the full moon cycles in the town where Lumen lives, some of the kids run wild. Known as breachers, they stalk the streets, animalistic, unclothed, they fight, they run, they indulge any urge until the sun rises. It starts suddenly it stops suddenly. All the children go through it, a rite of passage into adulthood. Well except apparently for Lumen's mother, she too believes she will be immune...
Oh where to start. Well for one thing the writing is pure poetry. Gorgeous prose, descriptively vivid and imaginative, allegorical genius and utterly utterly compelling. I lived and breathed within the pages every time I turned to it, it is immersive and totally insane, elegant yet very very wild.
Lumen grows up, we see her growing up, she is telling the tale from a distance- married now and with a son of her own, she no longer lives in the place she was from but she has certainly taken the heart of it with her it seems. I was surprised, delighted, melancholy and contemplative at various times during the reading of it, the author has a way of making you feel his characters emotions and making you feel your own.
When I was done with it I had a strange yearning. For what I'm not sure, but this this is a story that will stay with me for a long time. If you read the blurb and are expecting a werewolf novel or a tale about monsters then look away now - there is horror to be had here, as well as some harsh life realities and
some beautiful affirmations, but Joshua Gaylord's animals are all too human. They consist of the urges that lie in all of us, somewhere lurking beneath the surface.
This was a totally alluring piece of storytelling. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It won't be for everyone. But it was definitely for me.
Happy Reading Folks!
It drew me in like magic - Lumen is a beacon, her story strange and full of wonder, a coming of age tale set in a small town somewhere that could be anywhere but where puberty happens differently. And yet in a lot of ways it happens just as it does everywhere else...
During the full moon cycles in the town where Lumen lives, some of the kids run wild. Known as breachers, they stalk the streets, animalistic, unclothed, they fight, they run, they indulge any urge until the sun rises. It starts suddenly it stops suddenly. All the children go through it, a rite of passage into adulthood. Well except apparently for Lumen's mother, she too believes she will be immune...
Oh where to start. Well for one thing the writing is pure poetry. Gorgeous prose, descriptively vivid and imaginative, allegorical genius and utterly utterly compelling. I lived and breathed within the pages every time I turned to it, it is immersive and totally insane, elegant yet very very wild.
Lumen grows up, we see her growing up, she is telling the tale from a distance- married now and with a son of her own, she no longer lives in the place she was from but she has certainly taken the heart of it with her it seems. I was surprised, delighted, melancholy and contemplative at various times during the reading of it, the author has a way of making you feel his characters emotions and making you feel your own.
When I was done with it I had a strange yearning. For what I'm not sure, but this this is a story that will stay with me for a long time. If you read the blurb and are expecting a werewolf novel or a tale about monsters then look away now - there is horror to be had here, as well as some harsh life realities and
some beautiful affirmations, but Joshua Gaylord's animals are all too human. They consist of the urges that lie in all of us, somewhere lurking beneath the surface.
This was a totally alluring piece of storytelling. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It won't be for everyone. But it was definitely for me.
Happy Reading Folks!
May 11, 2015
4 1/2 stars *****
The nitty-gritty: An allegorical story about one teen’s journey toward adulthood, and all the unusual challenges she and her friends must overcome.
And it makes me wonder if one day I might be able to rediscover fully the child version of myself, before things fouled themselves up, when I was a little girl with commendable manners, when my father and I were two against the world, when my striving for goodness was so natural it was like leaves falling from trees everywhere around me, when I believed sacredness was to be found in many small things like ladybugs and doll toes, when I didn’t have a murderous thought in my head, not one.
This isn’t the easiest of stories to review. There’s very little plot to talk about, for one thing. Joshua Gaylord has written a book of ideas and emotions, and in When We Were Animals he gets to the meat of what it feels like—literally—to go through puberty. It was especially poignant for me, because I happen to have a boy and a girl who are sixteen and fourteen, respectively. These are the ages when teens in Gaylord’s small town “breach,” or turn feral. During the three nights of the full moon each month (with thanks to Joss Whedon for instructing me that yes, in fact, the moon is full for three nights a month!), these teens suddenly feel the urge to run outside at night and tear off their clothes, run wild through the streets, fight and have sex with each other, and let their wild sides run completely out of control. This odd behavior lasts about a year, and then it’s gone forever. After which time, supposedly the teen has crossed the final threshold into adulthood.
The story is about a girl named Lumen, who is approaching her sixteenth birthday but who hasn’t breached yet (and fears she never will). Coincidentally, she hasn’t started her period either, so it was pretty clear that the two are connected. Lumen tells her story from two perspectives: as an adult woman looking back on her time during the breach, and her current life as a wife and mother and how the past has affected her. She’s a very interesting character, in the sense that she seems detached from most of the emotions that the other kids her age feel, probably because she's telling her story from the distance of adulthood.
Lumen faces many of the same problems that any teen would face: being accepted by your peers, dealing with bullies and peer pressure, and having that feeling deep within yourself that something wants to break free, but not knowing how to deal with it. What Gaylord has done is taken all that teen angst and given it an outlet in the form of breaching, a completely acceptable rite of passage that every teen in town must go through. I loved the feral quality to these outings under the full moon, and while there isn’t anything supernatural to breaching—it seems as if the teens literally turn into animals, but they don’t—it felt dangerous and unpredictable.
Trigger warning: there are a few uncomfortable scenes that border on rape, although in one of the scenes the boy does change his mind and stop. But even those scenes weren’t as horrific as they could be. These teens know they’re out of control, and anything done during breaching is simply part of going through the process. In one scene, one of the more unlikable characters, a boy named Blackhat Roy, goes up to Lumen after she breaches for the first time and tells her, “Now you’re fair game.” It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what Roy is talking about.
My favorite relationship is the one between Lumen and her father. Because her mother died long ago, Lumen and her father have been alone for as long as she can remember. He loves her and trusts her to always do the right thing, and I felt bad for him when his perfectly behaved daughter was inevitably caught up in the breaching madness. It’s hard to read about a parent losing faith and trust in his child, and my heart broke for both of them.
Gaylord’s prose is delightful, and I honestly kept forgetting that a man had written this story! The voice of Lumen radiates femininity, and I’m so impressed by how well a male writer stepped up to the plate and convinced me that Lumen is indeed female, with all the emotions and desires that overtake teens at that age.
When We Were Animals cast a spell over me and made me think. It made me uncomfortable at times and sad at others. I know I’ll be looking at my own children with new eyes now that I’ve read this book, watching for signs of madness, which will hopefully never come. For those readers who enjoy unusual stories, this book is highly recommended.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Above quote is taken from an uncorrected proof, and may differ in the final version of the book.
This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy.
The nitty-gritty: An allegorical story about one teen’s journey toward adulthood, and all the unusual challenges she and her friends must overcome.
And it makes me wonder if one day I might be able to rediscover fully the child version of myself, before things fouled themselves up, when I was a little girl with commendable manners, when my father and I were two against the world, when my striving for goodness was so natural it was like leaves falling from trees everywhere around me, when I believed sacredness was to be found in many small things like ladybugs and doll toes, when I didn’t have a murderous thought in my head, not one.
This isn’t the easiest of stories to review. There’s very little plot to talk about, for one thing. Joshua Gaylord has written a book of ideas and emotions, and in When We Were Animals he gets to the meat of what it feels like—literally—to go through puberty. It was especially poignant for me, because I happen to have a boy and a girl who are sixteen and fourteen, respectively. These are the ages when teens in Gaylord’s small town “breach,” or turn feral. During the three nights of the full moon each month (with thanks to Joss Whedon for instructing me that yes, in fact, the moon is full for three nights a month!), these teens suddenly feel the urge to run outside at night and tear off their clothes, run wild through the streets, fight and have sex with each other, and let their wild sides run completely out of control. This odd behavior lasts about a year, and then it’s gone forever. After which time, supposedly the teen has crossed the final threshold into adulthood.
The story is about a girl named Lumen, who is approaching her sixteenth birthday but who hasn’t breached yet (and fears she never will). Coincidentally, she hasn’t started her period either, so it was pretty clear that the two are connected. Lumen tells her story from two perspectives: as an adult woman looking back on her time during the breach, and her current life as a wife and mother and how the past has affected her. She’s a very interesting character, in the sense that she seems detached from most of the emotions that the other kids her age feel, probably because she's telling her story from the distance of adulthood.
Lumen faces many of the same problems that any teen would face: being accepted by your peers, dealing with bullies and peer pressure, and having that feeling deep within yourself that something wants to break free, but not knowing how to deal with it. What Gaylord has done is taken all that teen angst and given it an outlet in the form of breaching, a completely acceptable rite of passage that every teen in town must go through. I loved the feral quality to these outings under the full moon, and while there isn’t anything supernatural to breaching—it seems as if the teens literally turn into animals, but they don’t—it felt dangerous and unpredictable.
Trigger warning: there are a few uncomfortable scenes that border on rape, although in one of the scenes the boy does change his mind and stop. But even those scenes weren’t as horrific as they could be. These teens know they’re out of control, and anything done during breaching is simply part of going through the process. In one scene, one of the more unlikable characters, a boy named Blackhat Roy, goes up to Lumen after she breaches for the first time and tells her, “Now you’re fair game.” It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what Roy is talking about.
My favorite relationship is the one between Lumen and her father. Because her mother died long ago, Lumen and her father have been alone for as long as she can remember. He loves her and trusts her to always do the right thing, and I felt bad for him when his perfectly behaved daughter was inevitably caught up in the breaching madness. It’s hard to read about a parent losing faith and trust in his child, and my heart broke for both of them.
Gaylord’s prose is delightful, and I honestly kept forgetting that a man had written this story! The voice of Lumen radiates femininity, and I’m so impressed by how well a male writer stepped up to the plate and convinced me that Lumen is indeed female, with all the emotions and desires that overtake teens at that age.
When We Were Animals cast a spell over me and made me think. It made me uncomfortable at times and sad at others. I know I’ll be looking at my own children with new eyes now that I’ve read this book, watching for signs of madness, which will hopefully never come. For those readers who enjoy unusual stories, this book is highly recommended.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Above quote is taken from an uncorrected proof, and may differ in the final version of the book.
This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy.
February 16, 2015
Looking back on her life from a conventional middle age, Lumen Fowler remembers her teen years in a small American community where teens don't just "run wild" at night metaphorically, they literally run wild for the three nights of the full moon while adults and young children stay locked in their houses, naked and committing acts of sex, violence, and other primal urges.
Narrator Lumen is a late bloomer and a good girl, small but with a fierce intelligence, living with her widowed father in a relationship that is tender and close. She's determined not to go "breach." She's surrounded by a very believable circle of teens: a best friend who sometimes becomes a rival; a "mean girl" type who tries to control the others; Peter Meechum, the charmer who all the girls want to be with; and "Blackhat" Roy, a rough poor kid who frightens them all. One by one, these others follow the town tradition and begin a period of about a year in breach, while Lumen tries to avoid it, believing that genetically, she might, as her deceased mother, be lacking some kind of internal trigger.
Gaylord's novel works both on the literal level as a contemporary gothic and on the metaphorical level as a study of the teenage years and the pull of darker instincts. The tone is haunting and captures the possibility and danger perfectly. The language is lush and forboding, and while you can see some of the directions the story is heading, their inevitability doesn't make the Gaylord's execution any less praiseworthy. A fine novel on the edge of horror and literary fiction. Perhaps the best point of comparison I can make is with The Virgin Suicides, the first novel by Jeffrey Eugenides that I also loved.
Narrator Lumen is a late bloomer and a good girl, small but with a fierce intelligence, living with her widowed father in a relationship that is tender and close. She's determined not to go "breach." She's surrounded by a very believable circle of teens: a best friend who sometimes becomes a rival; a "mean girl" type who tries to control the others; Peter Meechum, the charmer who all the girls want to be with; and "Blackhat" Roy, a rough poor kid who frightens them all. One by one, these others follow the town tradition and begin a period of about a year in breach, while Lumen tries to avoid it, believing that genetically, she might, as her deceased mother, be lacking some kind of internal trigger.
Gaylord's novel works both on the literal level as a contemporary gothic and on the metaphorical level as a study of the teenage years and the pull of darker instincts. The tone is haunting and captures the possibility and danger perfectly. The language is lush and forboding, and while you can see some of the directions the story is heading, their inevitability doesn't make the Gaylord's execution any less praiseworthy. A fine novel on the edge of horror and literary fiction. Perhaps the best point of comparison I can make is with The Virgin Suicides, the first novel by Jeffrey Eugenides that I also loved.
April 3, 2016
My So-Called Review
Wow, this book! Not sure how to accurately describe my feelings about this one. Kinda felt like being punched in the gut, having my insides ripped out and then being left there, reeling from the shock of it all. When We Were Animals is raw, dark and surprising real. It’s so beautifully written and I’ll do my best to describe it without giving anything away. Our MC, Lumen, lives in a small, isolated town where teenagers experience something called “breaching” once they hit puberty. During the full moon cycle each month, the streets will become empty by nightfall and doors will all be locked as “breachers” run wild through the streets. They become animalistic and strip off their clothing, they fight each other and engage in unabashed sexual activities, they riot and vandalize and basically engaged in any and all activities you’d NEVER want your child to participate in! Nobody knows why, when or how it started and it’s treated as a sort of rite of passage into adulthood. All children will go through it, although Lumen and her father believe (hope) that she won’t, that she’ll be able to bypass it altogether. Lumen’s mother never breached so they’re hoping, through genetics, Lumen won’t either.
This story and especially the style in which it’s told, won’t appeal to everyone; you’ll either love it or hate it, there won’t be any in-between. There are some very heavy and graphic subject matters depicted here that are done to and by teenagers yet I never once felt the author crossed the line, it was all described so purely and beautifully and I was honestly fascinated by it. I can only further describe this story as being a depiction of what would happen if you stripped away our humanity and returned us to our natural animalistic ways. The basic story-line has some similarities with the movie The Purge, the main differences being here we’re dealing with teen’s ages 13-16 instead of adults and rather than 1 night a year, this town experiences “breaching” for 3 days each month. If this isn’t enough to get you to sit up and take notice then there’s also an underlying mystery full of twists and turns, plus an ending I never would have predicted!
I adored Lumen’s character and saw so much of my teen self in her. All of her struggles, her longing, her feeling like there’s no “right” place in the world for her therefore she must be ”bad” or “wrong” in some way. I also loved that the story is told through Lumen’s POV as an adult while she looks back on her childhood and teen years leading up to her “breaching”. Young Lumen started out as such a docile girl who was often times overly willing and compliant. I was riveted by the transformation of her character from a young sweet girl into the woman who was narrating the story. Another big plus for me was the relationship between Lumen and her Dad. It was written so well and really captured what happens in a single parent/single child dynamic. For years you are each other’s whole universe, nothing else is needed nor does it matter because it’s the two of you against the world. But as children grow up that relationship is bound to alter and change, other people become important in a teenager’s life and the single parent finds they suddenly have a life again. It’s a natural process yet not an easy one to get through and I loved how the author chose to capture it here.
I would love to ask Joshua Gaylord how he came up with the idea for When We Were Animals and why he chose to write it from a girl’s POV, I’m rather curious because it’s done so well. He really captured the essence of teen girls and how they can be shockingly beautiful and cruel at the same time. At its heart this is a coming of age story but delivered in such a way that is so savage and unique. This is definitely a book I won’t soon forget, its story will stay with me for a very long time! I would have loved to read this with my book club, there are so many bits and points to dissect and discuss. Highly recommend but only for those not bothered by teens, sex and violence and who enjoy books that cross over into the weird and bizarre.This review was originally posted on My So-Called Book Reviews
May 11, 2015
Review from Tenacious Reader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2015/0...
When We Were Animals is a beautifully chilling story about humans and the animals within us. I absolutely love the prose and Gaylord’s way with words. He takes you right into the town and into the mind of our protagonist, Lumen. Lumen Fowler grew up in a small town with a peculiar nature. For three nights of each full moon teenagers “breach”, which means they run wild through the night and succumb to a carnal and predatory nature. They become animals free of of the bonds that hinder more base instincts and desires within humans in a civilized society. This stage usually lasts about 1 year and starts about age 15 but can vary per person. It creates an interesting setting where the people of the town know to stay indoors and away from these kids as they go crazy, free of restraint.
Lumen is an absolutely captivating character. She is a thinker, one great example is how she explains the meaning of her name, defines herself in terms of her name (which has numerous definitions). She loves words and maps and books. She has always feels a bit different from all of her friends and peers. She is absolutely sure she will be different in that she will not breach, she will not become one of the teenagers that runs wild in the night, she will not abandon all civilized ways to explore and rejoice in the night with the others in the wild where there are no rules to confine them. In some ways it reminds me of that “it can’t happen to me” type of outlook. She sees this thing that the teenagers become a part of and she just can’t reconcile that with any version of herself.
She is complex and quite conflicted trying to rectify the version of herself she wants to be, the version of herself everyone else sees and expects her to be, and the version of herself she can’t help but let come the surface even if she doesn’t want it to. We are told this story as her older adult self recollects her early teen years. Because of this we also get glimpses of the woman she becomes. It is a very interesting perspective, especially since it is not necessarily a reliable or unbiased one. We see the intelligent, beautiful and heart warming aspects of her personality as well as the darker ones.
Almost every teenage character, regardless of how sweet or nice, had moments of raw, visceral meanness. And I really felt that was part of the story. No matter how good someone is, everyone has a bit of evil, a bit of animal in them. And what happens when you try to suppress some innate part of yourself? Or worse, what happens when you don’t suppress that part of yourself? Kids learn these things and often make mistakes as they go. Not nearly to the extremes portrayed in the book. But sometimes people (particularly young people) go through a phase where repercussions don’t mean as much as fulfilling their desires or fitting in. They experiment and figure out what they can and can not do. They test the limits. People can turn on each other, they can be incredibly cruel and often groups can make it worse. I think this is part of what I loved about this book, it can be an examination of how teenagers grow up and experiment as they leave their childhood behind.
I enjoyed seeing how relationships in this change and evolve as so often happens. We find ourselves suddenly in a different place or stage of life and grow apart from people in our life. I think this is a terribly common thing, especially as kids grow up. There’s a loss there and we see Lumen as she deals with this change. There is also her relationship with her father which is incredibly important. Her mother died when she was very young, so her father raised her on his own. They are very close and her father has an incredible amount of respect for Lumen. You can’t help but love him as much as Lumen does.
I really can’t say enough great things about this book. It grabbed my attention from the beginning, and Lumen’s character just fascinated me. I found an examination of coming of age and relationships in this. But even at a surface level read it is incredibly engaging. Highly recommend.
When We Were Animals is a beautifully chilling story about humans and the animals within us. I absolutely love the prose and Gaylord’s way with words. He takes you right into the town and into the mind of our protagonist, Lumen. Lumen Fowler grew up in a small town with a peculiar nature. For three nights of each full moon teenagers “breach”, which means they run wild through the night and succumb to a carnal and predatory nature. They become animals free of of the bonds that hinder more base instincts and desires within humans in a civilized society. This stage usually lasts about 1 year and starts about age 15 but can vary per person. It creates an interesting setting where the people of the town know to stay indoors and away from these kids as they go crazy, free of restraint.
Lumen is an absolutely captivating character. She is a thinker, one great example is how she explains the meaning of her name, defines herself in terms of her name (which has numerous definitions). She loves words and maps and books. She has always feels a bit different from all of her friends and peers. She is absolutely sure she will be different in that she will not breach, she will not become one of the teenagers that runs wild in the night, she will not abandon all civilized ways to explore and rejoice in the night with the others in the wild where there are no rules to confine them. In some ways it reminds me of that “it can’t happen to me” type of outlook. She sees this thing that the teenagers become a part of and she just can’t reconcile that with any version of herself.
She is complex and quite conflicted trying to rectify the version of herself she wants to be, the version of herself everyone else sees and expects her to be, and the version of herself she can’t help but let come the surface even if she doesn’t want it to. We are told this story as her older adult self recollects her early teen years. Because of this we also get glimpses of the woman she becomes. It is a very interesting perspective, especially since it is not necessarily a reliable or unbiased one. We see the intelligent, beautiful and heart warming aspects of her personality as well as the darker ones.
Almost every teenage character, regardless of how sweet or nice, had moments of raw, visceral meanness. And I really felt that was part of the story. No matter how good someone is, everyone has a bit of evil, a bit of animal in them. And what happens when you try to suppress some innate part of yourself? Or worse, what happens when you don’t suppress that part of yourself? Kids learn these things and often make mistakes as they go. Not nearly to the extremes portrayed in the book. But sometimes people (particularly young people) go through a phase where repercussions don’t mean as much as fulfilling their desires or fitting in. They experiment and figure out what they can and can not do. They test the limits. People can turn on each other, they can be incredibly cruel and often groups can make it worse. I think this is part of what I loved about this book, it can be an examination of how teenagers grow up and experiment as they leave their childhood behind.
I enjoyed seeing how relationships in this change and evolve as so often happens. We find ourselves suddenly in a different place or stage of life and grow apart from people in our life. I think this is a terribly common thing, especially as kids grow up. There’s a loss there and we see Lumen as she deals with this change. There is also her relationship with her father which is incredibly important. Her mother died when she was very young, so her father raised her on his own. They are very close and her father has an incredible amount of respect for Lumen. You can’t help but love him as much as Lumen does.
I really can’t say enough great things about this book. It grabbed my attention from the beginning, and Lumen’s character just fascinated me. I found an examination of coming of age and relationships in this. But even at a surface level read it is incredibly engaging. Highly recommend.
June 6, 2015
A bang-up premise can lead to a letdown, and that’s exactly how I felt about When We Were Animals. The setup is so original, I couldn’t resist it: in a small Midwestern town, teenagers “breach” at the full moon—they run wild all night and come home naked and bruised in the morning, their memories of the night’s debauchery fuzzy and muted. The adults in town view breaching as a rite of passage; on full moon nights, they get home well before sunset and lock their front doors, while outside, anarchy reigns.
Lumen (indisputably one of my favorite character names ever), now grown and living a sedate married life far away, grew up in this strange town, and the knowledge of what she did during those unbridled nights won’t let her go. As she goes about her days, taking her son to the park and cooking dinner for her husband, she marvels that no one can see the dark, twisted girl she still knows herself to be. Lumen knows she isn’t quite right, or pure, or reputable—the town she grew up in made sure of that.
And here’s where the book failed me: Lumen makes such a big deal about how bad she is, how evil, how unsavory, that I was waiting for the big reveal—the moment when we’d finally find out what the heck she did during the breach that haunts her so. That moment never came. Lumen certainly did some weird stuff and indulged some strange urges, but the big cymbal crash, so to speak, never happened. Apparently it’s just the sum total of everything that happened to her during those formative years that affects her as an adult, and not a single pivotal act, as I’d thought.
Anyway—other than feeling a little blue-balled, I enjoyed Gaylord’s novel. His writing is lovely. Lumen’s narration, especially when she describes her adult life, is detached in the creepiest way. There’s definitely something not right about her. I wish Gaylord had let the bountiful subtext do the talking and skipped all of Lumen’s bald pronouncements about how bad she is inside; it would have made for a subtler and more effective read.
Despite its shortcomings, When We Were Animals is an absorbing, atmospheric, not-quite-horror novel, and if you’re in the mood for something creepy and dark to start your summer off right, it will be just the ticket.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
Lumen (indisputably one of my favorite character names ever), now grown and living a sedate married life far away, grew up in this strange town, and the knowledge of what she did during those unbridled nights won’t let her go. As she goes about her days, taking her son to the park and cooking dinner for her husband, she marvels that no one can see the dark, twisted girl she still knows herself to be. Lumen knows she isn’t quite right, or pure, or reputable—the town she grew up in made sure of that.
And here’s where the book failed me: Lumen makes such a big deal about how bad she is, how evil, how unsavory, that I was waiting for the big reveal—the moment when we’d finally find out what the heck she did during the breach that haunts her so. That moment never came. Lumen certainly did some weird stuff and indulged some strange urges, but the big cymbal crash, so to speak, never happened. Apparently it’s just the sum total of everything that happened to her during those formative years that affects her as an adult, and not a single pivotal act, as I’d thought.
Anyway—other than feeling a little blue-balled, I enjoyed Gaylord’s novel. His writing is lovely. Lumen’s narration, especially when she describes her adult life, is detached in the creepiest way. There’s definitely something not right about her. I wish Gaylord had let the bountiful subtext do the talking and skipped all of Lumen’s bald pronouncements about how bad she is inside; it would have made for a subtler and more effective read.
Despite its shortcomings, When We Were Animals is an absorbing, atmospheric, not-quite-horror novel, and if you’re in the mood for something creepy and dark to start your summer off right, it will be just the ticket.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
October 29, 2020
We start with one pure and concentrated version of ourselves, then we modify and mold, we layer defense over pretense over convention.
3.5 stars. This is a very different YA book, much darker, more introspective and beautifully written. The author brilliantly describes the thoughts of a teenager, how this is a time of extreme self-centredness. We also get to live through the change from innocent child to mature adult - Lumen, the main character, struggles with this transition. Something I feel a lot of sympathy for, as even now, I sometimes have a problem trying to assimilate something I did/feel with my bigger personality. "They might be a lot of different things," I said, "but they can only be one thing at a time." For me this was a book about good vs evil, but within yourself, and the unique setting allowed the author to intensify these emotions.
The story: Lumen grew up in a small town with a unique secret: when local youth reach puberty, on the full moon of each month for approximately a year they "go breach." When teens breach they essentially succumb entirely to animal instinct, running wild around town naked and destroying anything they please, fighting, having sex and generally wreaking havoc. Everyone not in the throes of the breach, young and old, remains indoors and tries to ignore the screams and howls from outside, ignores the scratches and bruises on the neighborhood teens the next morning.
February 5, 2017
Author Joshua Gaylord presents teenagers in all their naked vulnerability, their newly unleashed rage, their need to belong even as they struggle for independence. This dark story follows Lumen and her peers in a small town as they scratch and claw their way to adulthood. Looking back on this time in her life through adult eyes, Lumen, now called Ann, says, " You can't save everything. You can't save every little thing." I think she really means you can't save everyone. You can't save everyone.
While the story is a dark one, Gaylord's beautiful use of language does make it easier for the reader. I'm always tempted to track down my favorite passages rather than find my own words to describe my experience. So instead of doing that, I'll just finish by saying it's raw, it's harsh, and it's real.
While the story is a dark one, Gaylord's beautiful use of language does make it easier for the reader. I'm always tempted to track down my favorite passages rather than find my own words to describe my experience. So instead of doing that, I'll just finish by saying it's raw, it's harsh, and it's real.
July 18, 2018
***UPDATE***
I originally rated this 4 stars, but since reading it I keep thinking back to it, to the beauty of the writing and the feelings it evoked. I bumping it to 5 stars. I mean, it's on my favorites list for a reason, right?
I know what love is. Love is angrier than this. It's harsher. It's tasting the world on your tongue and digging your claws deep into the underbelly of life. I know exactly what love is. It's sometimes leaning over your husband while he sleeps, while he conjures in his dreams all the fears and ecstasies he would relish if he were ever able to let himself be truly and wholly alive, breathing in the fermented air exhaled from his pink, undamaged lungs-and it's sometimes wanting to rip out his throat with your teeth.
Lumen is such an ethereal character. If ever there were changelings it would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that she was among them. She lives in a town where, during the 3 days surrounding the full moons, citizens tuck themselves inside their homes before the sun goes and never venture out before the dawning of the next day. You see, in this town the teenagers experience a very unusual, very disturbing, very savage coming of age. They call it breaching. Why it's called that is up for speculation but teenagers who reach puberty begin to feel the call of the moon and the urge, no the necessity, to give into very primal, animalistic needs. Feral teenagers rule the nights here. But come morning, everything is at it should be. The wounds are tended to, the brutality is ignored, and life moves on.
But Lumen is not like most teenagers. Her mother never "breached" and she has decided that she never will either. Nature, however, does not always listen to our wants. Lumen eventually feels the call of the moon but knows that she feels it differently than most. That she IS different than most. She's broken. Because for Lumen the savagery doesn't end with the full moon. Her instinctual needs begin to follow into her days as well.
This is Lumen's story, told from both her adult perspective as she deals with the responsibility of family life, as well as her young/teen-aged one as she approaches and then passes "breaching."
This story. It is so hard to rate because on one hand I LOVED it. It was haunting and eerie and beautiful. The bones, if you will, of the story were sound. They were solid. But some parts just felt long and overdone, and, dare I say it, boring. Just too much. I reached the 30% mark and started counting down the pages to the end. I kept checking, hoping I'd made more progress. And if you're the type that likes a tidy resolution or answers, don't bother. You won't find either one of those here. There is absolutely no explanation as to why the town produces wild teenagers. It's just something that always was and always will be. It was happening before Lumen was born, it is probably still happening while she is all grown up. It just is.
I would urge you not to let any of these things deter you, however, because this a book that leaves you feeling breathless and lost. Like you've slipped into the space of madness that is Lumen. If you like a bit of wonder, a bit of violence, if you like pretty sentences and to feel words then this may be a good fit for you.
I originally rated this 4 stars, but since reading it I keep thinking back to it, to the beauty of the writing and the feelings it evoked. I bumping it to 5 stars. I mean, it's on my favorites list for a reason, right?
I know what love is. Love is angrier than this. It's harsher. It's tasting the world on your tongue and digging your claws deep into the underbelly of life. I know exactly what love is. It's sometimes leaning over your husband while he sleeps, while he conjures in his dreams all the fears and ecstasies he would relish if he were ever able to let himself be truly and wholly alive, breathing in the fermented air exhaled from his pink, undamaged lungs-and it's sometimes wanting to rip out his throat with your teeth.
Lumen is such an ethereal character. If ever there were changelings it would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that she was among them. She lives in a town where, during the 3 days surrounding the full moons, citizens tuck themselves inside their homes before the sun goes and never venture out before the dawning of the next day. You see, in this town the teenagers experience a very unusual, very disturbing, very savage coming of age. They call it breaching. Why it's called that is up for speculation but teenagers who reach puberty begin to feel the call of the moon and the urge, no the necessity, to give into very primal, animalistic needs. Feral teenagers rule the nights here. But come morning, everything is at it should be. The wounds are tended to, the brutality is ignored, and life moves on.
But Lumen is not like most teenagers. Her mother never "breached" and she has decided that she never will either. Nature, however, does not always listen to our wants. Lumen eventually feels the call of the moon but knows that she feels it differently than most. That she IS different than most. She's broken. Because for Lumen the savagery doesn't end with the full moon. Her instinctual needs begin to follow into her days as well.
This is Lumen's story, told from both her adult perspective as she deals with the responsibility of family life, as well as her young/teen-aged one as she approaches and then passes "breaching."
This story. It is so hard to rate because on one hand I LOVED it. It was haunting and eerie and beautiful. The bones, if you will, of the story were sound. They were solid. But some parts just felt long and overdone, and, dare I say it, boring. Just too much. I reached the 30% mark and started counting down the pages to the end. I kept checking, hoping I'd made more progress. And if you're the type that likes a tidy resolution or answers, don't bother. You won't find either one of those here. There is absolutely no explanation as to why the town produces wild teenagers. It's just something that always was and always will be. It was happening before Lumen was born, it is probably still happening while she is all grown up. It just is.
I would urge you not to let any of these things deter you, however, because this a book that leaves you feeling breathless and lost. Like you've slipped into the space of madness that is Lumen. If you like a bit of wonder, a bit of violence, if you like pretty sentences and to feel words then this may be a good fit for you.
Read
April 21, 2015I downloaded this on a whim because it has a gorgeous cover, a female protagonist, and—I think I’ve written about this before, somewhere—a coming-of-age story that uses monstrousness and violence as a metaphor for that difficult process. However, there ended up being a little bit too much going on here, at least for me, and one reveal in particular took me all the way out of the story (it happens toward the end; I bet you’ll know it when you see it). In this town, teenagers “breach,” going feral at the full moon for around a year. I like how, in this unnamed town, going breach is just the tradition, the way hanging out at the mall is in other places.
Verdict: Borrow
from Buy, Borrow, Bypass: http://bookriot.com/2015/04/20/buy-bo...
Verdict: Borrow
from Buy, Borrow, Bypass: http://bookriot.com/2015/04/20/buy-bo...
January 12, 2016
I can definitely see why so many people might love this book. It's raw and biting, and it speaks to the depravity of man and the frictions of adolescence both allegorically and poignantly. I recognize the beautiful writing and the impressive eloquence, but there was so much about it that left me feeling disturbed, dirty, and emotionally vacant. I read it vigilantly, not just because it was a quick and interesting read, but because I mostly didn't want to spend one more second with it than I absolutely had to.
May 18, 2015
This is perhaps one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. It is prosaic and lyrical and poetic. It is perfectly strange and compelling - teenagers that breach every night and give in to natural human urges of violence. I couldn't put this book down. I was so curious about where the book was heading and so infatuated with the incredible writing. A powerful story with an even more powerful voice. Truly remarkable.
March 13, 2018
oh boy do I hate this book.
November 18, 2018
I liked it. The book is about people getting in touch with their feral id, particularly teenagers when the moon is full. The book is smart and contemplative as well as entertaining. Although I felt the ending was incomplete and left me with some unanswered questions. Maybe it was supposed to.
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