My first experience with Lydia Millet was A Children's Bible a couple of years ago, and I was absolutely blown away by that book. I went into Dinosaurs cautiously optimistic, given how much I loved A Children's Bible, and was once again under the spell of Millet's beautiful yet spare writing style.

The plot of Dinosaurs is fairly commonplace (man moves to a new place, meets new people and learns to appreciate that no one is truly alone), but the writing is so compelling that I finished this in just a couple of sittings. I found all the characters richly drawn, and appreciated all Gil's new relationships for their nuances and differences. His friendships with Van and Tom were especially moving. The secondary bird characters also fit really nicely in the story and gave an opportunity for some lush nature writing. Gil's love for the hawk had me near tears.

I'm curious about Millet's choice of protagonist: a white man from New York via Boston with family money who has never had to work. Ultimately I was really fond of Gil's character, but would like to examine that a bit more with other readers.

Solid 4 stars, maybe even 4.5. Lydia Millet is a very talented writer and I won't hesitate to pick up anything by her in the future.

The book started slowly for me—it felt cold and impersonal and detached from its characters, but as Millet goes into more detail of their backstories, it opened up for me. I flew through it and will seek out her backlist.

I’m always surprised by how different each of Lydia Millet’s novels seem to be, but they all have a few things in common—good writing, unforgettable characters, and surprising plots. This one wasn’t surprising in the same was as The Children’s Bible, with its focus on the future with climate change, but it was surprising in that she refuses to send plots down the same old predictable paths, surprising me in its subtleness, inferiority, and willing to just let characters be. Every time I thought something dramatic or life-changing would happen, it didn’t, and I was thankful for that. I look forward to Millet’s next book!

I loved Lydia Millet's previous novel, A CHILDREN'S BIBLE, but honestly had no idea what this one was about. This turned out to be the best approach because what seemed like a simple story on the surface, man becomes interested and ingratiates himself into his neighbour's family, became much more,. Millet has written a detailed character study about a man who is real, honest, flawed and very likeable. Rarely do I see myself in male characters but I did here, which is no small feat.

A really lovely novel that I hope gets the attention it deserves.

Thanks to NetGalley, W.W. Norton & Company and Lydia Millet for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lots of metaphors:
people who live in glass houses...
being a 'Friendly Man'
birds and ants and other creatures reflecting human behavior
dinosaurs today

The protagonist Gil is endearing with his innate goodness and social anxiety (amplified by the choppy and often droll writing style), described as a "lone satellite, orbiting." Acted upon rather than an actor, Gil moves through life with things happening to him, from being orphaned early to 'adopted' into a family to considering adoption himself. Along the way, the affects of passivity on relationships and the primal desire to be coupled roll through his world.

Still it didn't add up to much for me. I was waiting for a slow burn. I was waiting to care or be more entertained or gain some insight. Instead the book just abruptly ended with no conclusion, just one more nonsequitor in a book full of them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Norton & Company for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review

I was so utterly, utterly charmed by this book. Bittersweet is the perfect word to describe it. A tad melancholy, philosophical, and ambling, a lonely man slowly builds up his family and his place in the world. It is very much a character driven story, and I got so wrapped up in them and their world. Like, Gil treks from Manhattan to Phoenix over the course of 5 months and that's the set up for the novel, not the plot. It's so simple and straight forward, yet so effective and thought-provoking. I caught myself smiling and/or touching my hand to my heart several times. The characters feel so real. And maybe I'm a paranoid reader, but I did spend a portion of this book waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something horrible to happen for the sake of drama because of course that would happen to these kind people. And it would have been very simple for Millet to take it in that direction and fall to tropes and melodrama. But she didn't and the heart of the book is not drama for drama's sake, which is really refreshing. Man, it was just So Good.

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet is a quietly poignant novel about human connection. I am now interested in reading other works by this author.

Lydia Millet has done it again. I look forward to every book she writes, particularly for her uncanny style and dry humor, and this one is a knock-out.

The story centers around Gil, a recent transplant from New York to Arizona, and the family who live next door. They become friendly and in classic Millet style, the small sometimes awkward moments of life are featured with outsize clarity. As their lives become more intertwined, Gil and Ted and Ardis (the parents next door) deal with the events life will throw: work, dating, death, friendship, parenting and ultimately how to do all these things in a good way. Integrity, goodness, and human desire and behavior, along with the utter ridiculousness that life just is, are all themes. Gil is a fantastic protagonist in his dogged want to be and do good, along with his constant struggle against loneliness and being unsure about how to act and what to do in certain circumstances. Should he intervene with a child be bullied? Is it his place to protect the local birds he finds shot dead near his property? How do you reconcile a 15 year relationship that ended and was only about money in the first place?

Birds, being the descendants of dinosaurs, play a role both in the story line and in the structure of the chapters. Each one is titled after a different bird. I enjoyed the idea of how long birds have been here, their ancestors on this planet, and how little and trifling our problems can be in light of that connection to such a long past. We are of this planet too, connected more than we may realize, and this should give us hope.

Well done, great read.

Strangely enjoyable, Dinosaurs is about not very much and yet really quite pleasant. Millet takes some risks with her characters - the centre of the story is Gil, the heir to an oil fortune, who decided to spend his life giving the money back. He provides himself with a comfortable lifestyle, and spends his days volunteering for different groups. After a breakup of his long term relationship, he decides to move to Phoenix, Arizona from New York. After walking there, he arrives at his new house and begins to have a close relationship with his neighbours, a classic nuclear family.

Like I said, there could have been many minefields here. Gil is endearing, and his friendship with his neighbours, is complicated and loving and a wonderful example of building community. His new life in Phoenix also comes with many new revelations about his old life, some losses, and some clarity.

Millet’s writing is spare and fascinating, as usual. I really quite enjoyed this, though it’s got much less of a plot than A Children’s Bible.

Writing: 5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 5/5

Deceptively simple, deeply beautiful story about a man who learns to open himself up to the world of human connection. Gorgeous writing detailing nature, thoughts, and a continuum of effort to fight for and take care of other people, but never himself. Takes place in the Phoenix desert, where one neighbor lives in a “castle” overlooking another neighbor whose home is built entirely of glass.

This is the first book I’ve read by Millet, and I’m definitely going to seek out the others to see if they all have this iridescent writing. The story was slow paced (which is not usually my thing) but I couldn’t stop reading. Humor, kindness, friendship, confusion, love, and moments of great poignancy — the book had it all.

The book reads as a simple story of a man (Gil) who lives next door to a family with a glass window as the side of their house, so essentially, he views them as one would see fish in a bowl. The characters are well drawn, smart, and the dialogue is snappy. Chapters are named for different birds, which adds another layer of meaning to the tale. Gill's life becomes entangled in ways with his neighbors' which he could not have predicted, possibly to illustrate how, as humans, we are all connected, even when we feel isolated. If you're a fan of Lydia Millet's work, or literary fiction you will most likely appreciate this. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

As the story opens, we meet Gil: Incredibly wealthy and with few personal ties (he was orphaned young and claims to have only ever had three friends and one long-term romantic relationship), Gil decided to relocate from Manhattan to Scottsdale, AZ, walking the 2500 miles over five months (“I wanted the change to cost me. You know? I wanted to earn it.”) Having bought a big house in the suburbs, sight unseen, Gil is bemused when a family soon moves into the glass-fronted home facing him, giving the solitary man a fishbowl view of a family life he’s never known. Gil has always tried to make meaning in his life with volunteer work and he soon makes a life for himself in Scottsdale: volunteering with a women’s shelter as a “Friendly Man” and getting to know the family next door.

Gil is captivated by the birds he sees from his new home (the only birds he recalls in Manhattan were the pigeons in the park) and each chapter is named for a different bird — Mourning (for the dove), Quail, etc. — and each type of bird then appears in that chapter and has a metaphorical connection to the content. If I have a complaint it would be that, as awkward as Gil tells us he feels around people, he is continually intervening with the people around him, and even with the teenagers next door, he always offers exactly the right advice; everyone who meets Gil finds him attractive and smart and charming.

The dialogue was snappy and charming, the nature writing was interesting, and the whole thing is short and sweet without a lot of surprises: Man seeks a fresh start, meets new people, realises he is connected to humanity after all.