History Literature / WhenWeWereAnimals

* CharacterDevelopment: The only person aside from Lumen to truly receive any is Blackhat Roy. When he's first introduced, he's the town's {{Jerkass}} [[{{Delinquents}} Delinquent]], but as the story progresses he shows himself to be a bit of a BrokenBird with an AmbiguousDisorder that genuinely, in his way, loves Lumen. He's pretty much the only character aside from Lumen herself that is not a SatelliteCharacter.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Hondy Pilt, though most of the descriptions of him seem to point toward Down syndrome.
** Lumen as well. She has no concept of boundaries, seems to be disconnected from reality as well as herself, and tends to exhibit behaviors of Depersonalization disorder or some other personality disorder. Jack seems to be aware that his wife isn't quite normal, and tells her that she has to get better once she is arrested for breaking and entering.
** Blackhat Roy fits the trope too. It's alluded that due to his upbringing as a LowerClassLout, he was abused and neglected quite often, and the interactions we see him having with other characters are almost reminiscent of [[TheBully a bully]] with Borderline Personality disorder.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: A big concern of teenage Lumen's is the fact that she is, for all intents and purposes, amenorrheic, and is a key plot point to Lumen's character development.

* FamousLastWords: "Lumen."

* {{Yandere}}: Blackhat Roy has shades of this.
* YourCheatingHeart: Peter Meechum sleeps with Rosebush Lincoln during a breach while in a relationship with Lumen. The breach is used to justify his actions, as those who are breaching are implied to not have much control over their behavior. While it doesn't lead to their breakup, it initiates the rift between them.

NeedsWikiMagic in terms of NeedsABetterDescription.

When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she is surprised that she became a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. As a 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. Lumen resists. Promising her father she will never breach, she investigates the mystery of her community's traditions and the stories erased from the town record. But the more we learn about the town's past, the more we realize that Lumen's memories harbor secrets of their own.

Described as a "gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times," ''When We Were Animals'' is a Horror/Young Adult novel written by Joshua Gaylord (also known as Alden Bell), published in 2015.

''When We Were Animals'' was nominated for the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award, and placed as Runner-Up for the 2016 ALA Reading List (Horror).

NeedsWikiMagic.

* CallBack: One of Lumen's favorite bedtime stories as a child is the relationship and wedding day of her mother and father, right down to the orchid colored gloves she wore at their wedding. [[spoiler: The last time she speaks to the girl's corpse in the mine, it's once she realizes that it's the body of her long-dead mother, and asks if she had worn orchid colored gloves at her wedding.]]

* TalkingToTheDead: Lumen and the girl's body in the mine shaft. [[spoiler: The last time she speaks to the corpse, it's once she realizes that it's the body of her long-dead mother, and asks if she had worn orchid colored gloves at her wedding.]]

* HouseFire: The Fowler house burns down on prom night. It's not explicitly admitted, but Blackhat Roy more or less tells Lumen he started the fire by accident. [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to Blackhat Roy, whose guilt over the fire is what ultimately drives him to commit suicide, Marcus Fowler is trapped in the coal hole and killed in the blaze while searching for Lumen, whom he'd thought had come home.]]

* LikeAGodToMe: Mr. Hunter explains that because her mother never went breach but willingly joined those who did, even while pregnant with Lumen, once the secret was out that she had been pretending the whole time, all of the breachers viewed her as this, including Mr. Hunter himself.

** Also, the [[BelligerentSexualTension dysfunctional relationship]] between Blackhat Roy and Lumen has some [[TheMasochismTango decidedly]] [[DestructiveRomance dark undertones]], ending in a [[RomanticizedAbuse violent interlude]] that ultimately plays a part in someone's death.

* PurpleProse: THE WHOLE BOOK. This is how Lumen speaks.