I picked this up because I was very impacted by Real Life. It was mundane and beautiful and I found myself crying without really knowing why. Filthy Animals is steeped in the same melancholy that Taylor does so well. I’m also partial to the setting - most of his stories take place in Wisconsin or Iowa which make them feel so familiar. The structure of the book is basically one continuous story that is broken up every chapter with an unrelated short story. This was a different take on the short story collection and I think it helped the momentum a bit. 

I really did not like Lionel’s new friends Charles and Sophie, and I’m still unsure what their story was really about. But when I got to another chapter about them I was curious about what they would do next. There was never a chapter from Sophie’s perspective, which was especially curious since there was a chapter from a different side character’s perspective thrown in there along with Charles’ and Lionel’s. That side character was able to give us a little insight into Sophie’s motivations but I still never fully understood her.

My favorite story was “Anne of Cleves.”