Animal starts with our main character, Joan, watching her married ex-lover commit suicide in a restaurant. We don’t know why. She immediately moves to Los Angeles, feeling that the only possible next step for her is to meet a woman named Alice. We don’t know why. Both of Joan’s parents are dead – we don’t know why that happened either. All these mysteries are unravelled slowly, giving away just enough about Joan’s past to keep you reading while letting you sit in the suspense. Animal is, at its core, an exploration of what a woman can become after enduring the selfishness and violence of men. It doesn’t try to water down Joan’s suffering by making her palatable – traumatised people rarely are in real life. It has the catharsis of a revenge story without turning its main character into either a martyr or a villain. A riveting and really addictive read. MG

Published by Bloomsbury