Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, child abuse, child death, death by suicide, animal death, and graphic violence.

Deadly Animals depicts characters who teeter from fascination into obsession to the detriment of themselves or those around them. The text draws parallels between the protagonist, Ava, and the antagonist, Nathaniel, to explore where this boundary lies. Although Ava’s experiments at her roadkill body farm are unusual for a girl her age, the text presents this activity as a harmless fascination undertaken in a spirit of scientific inquiry. Ava doesn’t mutilate or damage the cadavers, she simply observes them in different environmental conditions, draws detailed illustrations of the stages of decay, and then buries her subjects “so they could rest in peace” (5). Conversely, Nathaniel’s experiments intentionally cause harm. In one instance, Nathaniel broke a cat’s legs and threw it off an apartment roof to observe how it would react without its righting reflex. Nathaniel’s early efforts to create a wolf suit also display his carelessness with life, as the Wolf “had stolen its fur coat from the very dogs he professed to love” (332). Obsessed with mastering death, Nathaniel leaves a path of wreckage in his wake, for both the humans and animals of Rubery.