Synopsis
Julie has moved in with her boyfriend, Leo, who is about to turn 20. Julie has big, festive plans for Leo's birthday, but Leo just wants to enjoy a romantic dinner with his girlfriend in peace and quiet. As the birthday gets closer and closer, Julie begins to suspect that Leo is, God forbid, friendless. So she sets out to do something about it.
A powerful and tragicomic story about growing older, maturing and what it means to be lonely.
With stunning artwork by Els Cools.
Personal note from the author
Over the past few years, I've been thinking a lot about friendships and loneliness. What does it mean to be lonely? Can you have too many friends? Too few? How do we perceive people who have fewer friends than us?
I think for many people, having a large, dynamic circle of friends is an ideal. That way, if you only have a few close friends, you can quickly feel out of place. With Herd Animals, I want to question that ideal.
The fact is that we are all different and there is a difference between being lonely and being alone. At one point, the book's main character Julie thinks that you can feel lonely even when you're surrounded by other people. I think that's very true. However, she overlooks the fact that the opposite can also be true: you can feel part of a community even if you don't see each other very often.
