At 24, Rita scrapes by in London between precarious jobs and relationships that are beginning to fray. After a personal crisis forces her to stop, she must confront the erosion of her bonds in an intimate and raw story, told with the close voice of a darker Sally Rooney and the emotional intensity of Euphoria.
Rita is 24 years old and has been living in London for some time, sharing flats, precarious jobs, and long nights with the persistent feeling of always being suspended halfway between who she was and who she still does not know how to become. Her life unfolds among bars, poorly paid shifts, and relationships with few expectations—a way of inhabiting the world that seems light until, one night, after a casual sexual encounter, a man ejaculates inside her without warning or consent. The fear of pregnancy and the sudden awareness of having lost control over her own body force Rita to stop and look at herself with uncomfortable clarity.
From that moment on, small cracks begin to appear in the bonds that sustain her. Her friendship with Lis—her flatmate and companion since adolescence—undergoes a silent transformation. Lis grows increasingly absent, more withdrawn, spending her days in bed and barely leaving her room, while Rita tries to reach her without knowing how. Their coexistence fills with awkward silences and accumulated exhaustion, until the tension between them erupts when Rita interferes in a conflict with Lis’s boyfriend and Lis firmly stops her for the first time. Shortly afterward, Lis confesses that she believes her partner has been unfaithful and that she herself has been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection.
The distance between them deepens. What for years had been a refuge begins to feel uninhabitable, and the difficulty of accepting that even the deepest friendships can come to an end comes to the surface.
At the same time, Eva, Rita’s older sister, calls her in a panic after a positive pregnancy test. Rita goes to her apartment to accompany her and, for the first time, witnesses the collapse of a figure she had always associated with control and success. Eva cries, hesitates, contradicts herself, and Rita understands that stability, too, is fragile.
The novel unfolds through everyday scenes, half-finished conversations, silences, and minimal gestures in which the body, desire, and fear occupy a central place. London appears as a cold and precarious space, and as her surroundings come apart—the friendship with Lis, the shared flat, a job that leads nowhere—Rita decides to leave. She buys a ticket, returns to her parents’ home, and leaves the city behind, resigned and accepting that this stage of her life has come to an end.
Small Animals is, at its core, the story of how a friendship unravels without drama or catastrophe: not as a failure or betrayal, but as a natural process tied to growth and to lives that no longer fit together. An intimate and physical account of the end of certain stages and the need to accept that even the deepest bonds can wear out without leaving anyone to blame.
RELEVANT INFORMATION: Mercedes Duque Espiau is a Spanish writer, anthropologist, and lecturer, praised by critics for her moving prose and for portraying a faithful generational portrait of human relationships and contemporary issues.
In 2025 she published her first novel, Small Animals, an intimate and close story set at a moment of vital change.
Through everyday and recognizable situations, the novel accompanies its characters as their relationships and certainties transform. With few settings, a realistic tone, and close attention to gestures, silences, and bonds, the book offers very attractive material for a film or short-series adaptation—current, accessible, and with a clear connection to young adult audiences.
What the critics say:
“It makes us ask who we are and how we have come to shipwreck on this shore so far from salvation.” – Elaine Vilar Madruga
“Vivid, moving, beautiful and clouded, tender and piercing. It goes through you at hundreds of different points and stays pulsing inside you like a puppy in a burrow.” – Elisa Victoria
“The inhospitable path of two girls toward maturity. Mercedes Duque wraps us in her prose in a current and effervescent account of the mourning of friendship.” – Silvia Hidalgo
“Small Animals is a novel as soft and dangerous as an ermine. An X-ray of a generation fed by dreams and devoured by reality.” – laSexta
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV series, Miniseries, Feature film, TV film.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.
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