Animals

Unsworth´s second novel, following Hungry the Stars and Everything (2011), centers on the misadventures of two young women in Manchester. At 32, Laura is making a sincere effort to grow up. She is engaged to Jim, a smoldering concert pianist, and is gamely trying to plan their wedding. Her roommate and best friend, Tyler, has no such aspirations: her nights are drink and drug-fueled adventures, and she has no wish to lose her partner in crime to the conventions of marriage and (the horror!) motherhood. The divide between the two halves of Laura´s life only grows wider when Jim gives up drinking altogether, and Tyler fans the flames of Laura´s reluctant attraction to a flirtatious academic who happens to be an expert on Laura´s favorite poet, Yeats. Told in Laura´s frank voice, Unsworth´s novel is a frenzied ride, but at its core it´s a millennial coming-of-age tale that will speak to many young women and young men who aren´t quite ready to give up their wild, carefree ways for a life of adult responsibility.