Filthy Animals

Content warning for suicide attempt, suicidal ideations, medical scenarios, violence, sexual abuse, manipulation, graphic descriptions, and related topics. Short story isn't my favorite genre, but I'll keep trying. I liked some of these stories, but the collection as a whole didn't work for me. There ended up being a bunch of characters, and they blurred together and I felt like some weren't connected to the others at all. I think I would have liked them more if they were either more connected or less connected.

Overall a good collection. My only problem is that some stories are much stronger than other, to a degree that sometimes I wished for a novel about favored characters and felt annoyed when the more interconnected stories and characters were 'interrupted' by something new and out of left field. That being said, Taylor's writing is beautifully evocative. The characters were compelling. Taylor's Real Life has been on my reading list for quite a while, and the writing in this collection has certainly convinced me to bump it up the list.

I'm not going to give this book a numerical rating. Each story made me think and feel: sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes confused but overall the writing was beautiful. My main gripe is feeling like it ended abruptly. I think I need one more story where somehow, all of the characters make an appearance.