Amazing stories! Compelling and enjoyable but also very deep.

I loved how the stories were interconnected with each other, each story was alone but also had threads that connected them all. I loved figuring out how each character fit into the bigger picture.
Millets writing style is immaculate, her comments on COVID and the social commentary about modern day liberal-ish Americans are some of the best I have ever read. I definitely will check out her other work.

I’ve always loved short stories, but I don’t always connect with every piece in a collection. With Atavists, though, I was surprised by how many of them stuck with me. I listened to a few of these while walking my dog around the neighborhood, and I caught myself pausing just to think about a line that hit a little too close to home.

These stories dig into the weirdness of being alive right now. I especially liked how each story felt grounded in something real. The tone shifts just enough to keep things interesting, and the subtle links between stories give the whole collection a cohesive feel.

I am a lover of short stories with connections to each other. I enjoyed the relatable characters and the interweaving of all the stories.

An understated, but beautifully swirling collection of interconnected short stories. Some stories better than others of course (same with narrators, there was one reader I got big icks from), but overall a delight.

This was a really interesting collection of related stories about people who (mostly) live in the same community. Their worries, preoccupations, and relationships were entertaining!

This book snuck up on me.

This is a collection of interconnected short stories from the perspectives of different people who know each other, either closely or in passing. Each chapter is titled as an "ist" such as "Futurist" or "Mixologist" and highlights what is important to us in the modern era.

I wasn't sure about this book going in. The first couple stories made me think that this wasn't for me, but ultimately I just had to trust the process. All of a sudden, I found myself wanting to read just one more chapter and realized I was fully invested. The writing is so smart and the stories are only a brief glimpse into each person's life so none of the stories are finished, but life is never neatly wrapped up so I didn't mind that at all. Overall, this was a very interesting slice-of-life.

This set of interconnected short stories reveal the grand and petty concerns of modern day life in a way that was darkly humorous, and fun to listen to. The narrators really brought the stories to life and I would absolutely recommend it to those who like contemporary fiction.

This collection of short stories sneaks up on you and wraps its arms around you. It's like being cozy on the couch, watching your favorite family sitcom. This is what I felt while listening (audiobook) to this book. I wanted to be immersed in these character's lives.

The book is sneaky though, like I said above. At first, you're like oh okay, just some average stories about some upper middle class people living in CA. But then the author sucks you in. She connects one story to another, and uses this character from this story, and gives them their own story, and so on. Till the end, you feel like you were plopped down in the middle of a tight little community that you don't want to leave. You want to know everyone's thoughts and secrets.

I think a part of the success of this book for me personally, was that the author didn't do the following:

Make the characters obnoxious. These are mostly upper middle class characters, and most of them had money. But the author wrote them with such genuine relatibility, that I couldn't be irritated or annoyed with their status.

The audiobook was fantastic, as there were several narrators voices used and all were excellent. It made for a good listen.

I think my only gripe was that in a few stories she did use third person narrative regularly which made it a tad confusing at certain points while listening to the audiobook.

I could go on longer, but I'll keep it short. I would definitely recommend this book to short story lovers, but also to someone who has not read short stories - it would be a gentle slide into the genre. Excellent experience all around!

This felt like American Beauty set in 2025. In other words: much worse.

The interconnected stories are about the things we care about in modern society...and it just feels so empty and wrong.

Millet's writing is very cynical, snarky and sharp. They are very funny too but they don't really make you laugh because underneath there is the unsettling feeling that what we care about is not what we should be caring about.

Lydia Millet’s Atavists is a sharply observed collection of interconnected short stories that dissects the contradictions of modern life—each tale focusing on a different “-ist,” from "The Dramatist" to "The Optimist", "The Terrorist" to "The Cosmetologist". Set in post-pandemic Southern California, the stories feel both intimately personal and universally relevant, capturing the awkward, sometimes absurd social dynamics many of us recognize but rarely articulate.

Two of the most memorable stories for me were "The Gerontologist"—which was hysterical in its dry humor and generational insight—and "The Pastoralist", a standout for how it skewered performative altruism in suburban America. I also found "The Cultist" and "The Insurrectionist" fascinating in how they mirrored the fringe movements bubbling beneath the surface of current culture.

I listened to the audiobook thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media, and the cast of narrators—Hillary Huber, Devon Sorvari, Patrick Zeller, and Pete Cross—brought each character to life with clarity and nuance. Their performances added richness to Millet’s already sharp prose.

While not every story hit with equal force, the cumulative effect is deeply thought-provoking. Millet doesn’t offer easy answers, but she’s brilliant at holding a mirror up to our society’s most fragile egos and loudest contradictions. A clever, unsettling, and often funny read that lingers long after the final story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the Audio ARC!

My favorite story in this collection was the one about the retired suburban father who becomes obsessed with housing refugees in his backyard. The simplicity of the idea and the reality of the prose make it a hidden gem of a story. The same can be said for many of the stories in this collection. Simple ideas, excellent execution.

Thank you Dreamscape and NetGalley for the ARC!

3-stars

Reading, Atavists: Stories by Lydia Millet, was like being a fly on the wall in a community of connected characters. Listening to one story often answered a lingering question from another story and I often found myself wishing I could provide that context to the characters who didn't have it.
This short read was a welcome break from all of the fantasy I've been reading recently.

The variety of narrators really helped me visualize each slice of life. It was easy to imagine these as real people who were mostly just trying their best to find a good balance in life.

Happy Pub Day to this excellent short story collection from one of our best writers. I am a huge fan of the short story format, if you prefer novels or nonfiction or some other type of book, you might not be as enamored with this collection as I am. I love the way short stories punch you in the gut without a long preamble. You think you are reading a slice of life account of a kid who seems to be floundering, bartending just to have a job, and then you are completely heartbroken by a side character. These stories are interconnected, weaving a narrative web the reader can choose to explore, or simply take each vignette by itself. Every story is interesting on its own, woven together they create a tapestry of compassion and despair and love. A note on the narration: Normally I steer clear of audiobooks narrated by more than two people. I do not like full cast recordings. I was a bit worried when I saw this audiobook had several narrators. It was with a real sense of relief I found that each story had a single narrator. It worked wonderfully for this format. Switching narrators helped delineate between the end of one story and the beginning of the next. I started the book as a skeptic but was quickly converted to the multiple narrator format. Thank you to Lydia Millet, the narrators, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley for the audioARC.

I really enjoy "linked stories." These stories involve people who are just tangentially related (neighbors, co-workers, therapists, etc. of a previous main character) but the last story demonstates there are hidden connections we may not even be aware of - therefore we shouldn't assume any of these characters have nothing to do with us. Some of the themes of the stories are generational misunderstandings (or connections), cancel culture, anxiety, and work stresses. Millet is a very accomplished writer and I'd definitely like to read more from her.
I listened to the audio book and it was very good overall, but on the first story narrated by a man, he trailed off at the end of sentences and I had a very hard time hearing and understanding (at my usual 1.5 speed, anyway). I was constantly turning the volume up and down.

Wow I loved this book!

I don't always find that I want to keep picking up short story collections, because there isn't any kind of suspense about what's going to happen next--and learning new characters for such a small amount of reading can feel like a chore.

This book did not have that issue! Each of these stories inhabits the same world, a world of upper-middle class, suburban self-conscious liberals. In each of the stories we experience a different character's perspective on many of the same events. Sometimes we uncover the truth, sometimes we uncover more questions than we had to begin. The stories are funny, sad, interesting and captivating.

This was an audio book and I really loved the narration, which shifted between voices for differentstories as the main characters changed. With that said, I'd like to get a copy of it as well to reread and flip around in to better understand the relationships between the stories and characters. I finished this in one sitting because I couldn't wait to learn more about all of the little weird things that Millet had introduced!

Definitely the best fiction of April so far!

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for an advance listening copy for an unbiased review.

So intimately normal. Interconnected short stories from various people in one neighborhood, such a fun takes on various moments/elements in our lives.
Loved the various narrators, gave each story its own life.

💌 Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me with an advance listeners copy of this collection. It was well-narrated by a terrific cast. I always love when an audiobook gets multiple actors to bring the story to life. It only enhances the experience and helps to unify the overarching plot and glimpse into the lives of the characters.

I LOVE an interconnected short story collection, and Lydia Millet’s writing is such a wonderful pairing for this type of book. The topic of generational divide is at the heart of these relationship centric stories. We look at many different subjects that are integral (for better or worse) to our daily lives; climate change, social media, mental health and capitalism — what is in our power to control… and what controls us. More slice of life than anything, I enjoyed falling into these dynamics, story after story.

The depictions of the individual generations wasn’t always spot on, and not every story was a win for me. But as a whole, the collection works, and if you already enjoy Lydia Millet’s writing, I think this will be no exception.

THANK YOU #DreamscapeMedia and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Lydia Millet's AMAZING linked story collection #Atavists, I was thrilled to receive this as an #audiobook (my preferred platform) and the narrators were stellar. While I was aware that this was a book of short stories, I did not realize that they were linked -- my favorite genre!!

This collection is one of the best I've read. Incredible characters and a brilliant weaving of time, places, events, and people. Each story worked perfectly as a method of informing details in companion stories. Each of the fourteen pieces serve to elucidate people's motivations and outcomes of events in some aspect. Simply brilliant. This genre is my favorite because, when it is done well - like this collection is = it feels like "real-life."

We want to know more about what interests us - how things start and how they end - but the reality is that life never ties itself up in a bow and sits at our feet. Millet, along with writers like Liz Strout, Melissa Bank, and more recently Ben Shattuck and Daniel Mason, weave tremendous narratives which inform readers, in subtle, interconnecting ways, how things are linked - for better or worse, in both fragile and enduring ways - and to me this reflects life itself. We are all, in various ways, interconnected regardless of how unique and independent we may feel. The planet, too, is part of this connection.

This book ends on a chilling note (not a spoiler!!) about how "we" as characters will"end" - also questioning what will live and endure. Politics, pandemics, climactic catastrophes all linger in the background of everything even as we try to fall into our own self-contained ecosystem(s) of work, family, etc. and grasp at the illusion of control.

For me, this collection was absolutely brilliant. Full stop. I thoroughly enjoyed every single story especially the lead off "Twist" which has a fictional single mother, Lydia, interacting with her young son, Sam, and trying to navigate the superficial and enigmatic world of social media. This story sets a variety of stages for the characters who follow and we get to see certain characters (parents, children, neighbors, customers) under a variety of lights. The ways in which the story details inform and elucidate companion stories is remarkable.

Topics like existential dread, climate catastrophes, miscommunication, division and connections between generations, family, love, misinformation, and loneliness thread throughout the stories.

Because I had the audiobook - narrated beautifully by Hillary Huber, Devon Sorvari, Patrick Zeller, and Pete Cross - the story titles were not listed on my app, but after the first story, every one that followed focused on an -ist (ex. artist, fetishist, mixologist, insurrectionist, terrorist, etc.) falling in line with the title of the collection - ATAVISTS (throwbacks to primitive behaviors).

I wanted to get this review done asap as the book goes on sale tomorrow 4/22/2025. If you appreciate well written stories (and linked collections in particular) DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!

"We are all waiting for a sign we never see."
Basically the people in these connected stories are all grappling with being stuck, they are stuck in their lives where they are searching for something.

I find it sometimes a bit lacking, I did not really get the sense of "climate activism" that I heard it was about. It was fine, but I was waiting for something more.
Millet does write interesting characters and situations, occasionally hilarious in their observation.

3.75

This was a miss for me. I don’t typically like short stories, but I was intrigued by the interconnectedness of these stories and the description of it as climate fiction, so I gave it a try. But nope. Many of the stories kept my interest and finding the connections between the characters too — and then it just ended. I kept waiting for the stories to add up to something but either they didn’t or I didn’t get it.

Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.