FILTHY ANIMALS is a collection of stories that entrance you with their intimacy. 

Brandon Taylor allows his character to be raw and flawed…to be bold in their fallibility and yet, you get inside them in a way where you understand them and root for them. 

It feels like being seen by the author when he doesn’t hold back the messiness of life. He explores how intense human connections can feel and how darkness always lurks in the corners of the power we feel when we know someone cares what we think. 

There are several stories in the collection that connect through the small group of people who know each other from a dance school. The world feels emotionally lush and complex because of the different perspectives. 

The book is satisfyingly visual. I would argue that it is begging to be the next Lenny Abrahamson project. A world of queer and open relationships that dig up the complexities of human expectations and the universally human need to avoid feeling lonely. 

Loneliness seems linked to the delicacy of snow throughout the stories. The sounds of snow, the feel of snow and the texture of snow comes up in every story, somehow relating human emotions to the beauty and the intricacies of the snow. 

To experience the snow, it demands your attention. It demands its own moment of recognition. It is not just there, it is miraculous and each flake only lives for a fleeting and delicate moment. 

It feels like Taylor asks us to stop and consider our emotions with the same detail and regard.