Justin Torres’  novel, We The Animals, authentically narrates Torres’ short lived childhood through the perspective of himself at age 6 and onward. Throughout the novel Torres not only takes the reader on a journey through a series of epiphanic moments he encounters but his brothers as well. Torres’ brothers witness him become unfamiliar to them in relation to sexuality, and boyhood. Initially, Torres and his brothers refer to themselves as the “three musketeers” chanting the mantra, “three for all, and free for all” (p.24). We watch the communication between the brothers dwindle as they observed their little brother change into something they couldn’t understand.

As disheartening as Torres’ childhood is depicted, he still craft-fully finds a way to illustrate the complex love and connection his family share. He constantly reiterates the intent of their actions and how content they were in their situation. However, being an outcast in a broken family still took it’s toll on him.  At the height of the novels tension of sexuality, the unnamed narrator remarks, “[t]he wilder I became the more they retreated their love for me” (118).  This complex excerpt from the novel reiterates the same way his brothers and himself tolerate their unusual mother, by retreating in their love for her. Amidst the rawness of the book, Torres is intentional in including an instance of laughter, “they looked each other in the eyes, teasing and laughing” (p.46), but unfortunately like most families that is not where the story ends. Torres takes the broken perspective of his childhood and depicted the complex love that most families endure.