Omnivores by Lydia Millet

Omnivores Reviews

• 
  Ethan

  One of the more eye-opening lessons from my college globalization class was the story of how taxonomy begat capitalism. By encouraging inner-continental exploration, the Linnean system created a legacy of exploitation, eventually leading to the plastic hell of the modern world. This is the setting of Omnivores, in which taxonomy and greed are major themes. This cartoonish novel is both funny and disturbing, bringing to mind such disparate references as L’Eclisse and Dead Alive. This is surely the first time I’ve encountered a piece of media that reminded me of these two (of my favorite) movies. An impressive debut. Shout out to Mike for the recommendation.
• 
  Tye

  Beautiful. Maybe I'm dumb but this is some of the smartest feminist fiction I've ever read. Oddly, it reminds me of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though...I heart Lydia Millet. She gets my crush.
• 
  Kitty

  Write something that means something next time please thank you goodbye
• 
  mina-mae alexander

  On the book front 'omnivores reads like a cartoon with soul'. LA Times sure werent wrong about that, this book is hilarious and also very gross, surreal and downright bizarre. At times it made me feel the same sort of ikky uncomfortable i felt watching goosebumps as a kid.
  
  Omnivores is about the entrapment of Estée by men in three parts: father, husband, son. But its 'about' lots of things really. Late stage capitalism critique? Men critique? Whatever, both these things are as absurd as each other.
• 
  Mary

  Disturbing! I almost had to stop reading / did stop reading at a particularly disturbing part early on, then picked it up again and glad to have done so. Quirky doesn't even begin to describe it. It's not horror, but there is horror. Very much reminds me of George Saunders. The cover synopsis doesn't do it justice at all.
• 
  Edward Champion

  Even at this early stage in her career, Millet's commitment to screwed up families and outliers is quite vivacious. You're probably better off skipping ahead to OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART and HOW THE DEAD DREAM if you aren't interested in being a Millet completist. But this is a fascinating early volume that sees Millet discovering her interests in science, environment, and human behavior.
• 
  kathryn

  horrible people, horrible things happening, a monster, gross horribleness! even the one character that you're supposed to like is not completely likable. I finished it quickly partly bc i wanted to get it over with but also bc I wanted to know what horribleness would happen next.
• 
  Lily

  This was totally wild. Very short, but packed a lot in there. Estée lives through the most hellish childhood, the worst, most captive marriage, and a demonic baby spawn, making it through to the other side. The whole thing felt very Addams Family-esque in a fun way.
  
  Part 1: Estée's father is an insane scientist who does horrible experiments on insects, working his way up to birds and small mammals, ending with human beings. Her mother believes she is paralyzed after having sex with her father for the first time, resulting in Estée and the apparent loss of the use of her limbs. Estée is kept completely captive in the house, banned from school, learning only species, genus, and phylum of all variety of animals and being forced to be her demented father's laboratory assistant.
  
  Part 2: Estée is married off to the boorish, eighties-finance-bro Pete Magnus and finds herself out of one captivity and into another. She is completely guileless, knowing nothing about the real world or the nefarious creatures who inhabit it. Lights are shined on American excess. This part was the weakest. It's been done, of course.
  
  Part 3: Estée becomes pregnant with a demon spawn, believing it to be the son of a shrunken head in Pete's showy tribal artifacts collection. This part was my favorite. The baby is born with a full set of teeth, eats rodents, claws at his fathers face, and leads his daycare classmates in a cult-like uprising against their abusive, disciplinarian teachers. I liked Little Bill, as he was called. He didn't speak in normal sentences, instead aping things he had heard on the news. "'A generation gap in venture capital,' said William matter-of-factly." Or "'Wild bachelor party with seventy-two topless girls,' he mumbled plaintively in her ear." He was like Sunny from Series of Unfortunate Events, where every nonsensical thing he said had an exact analog in more typical speech. Or the baby in The Addams Family Values, sweetly destroying, maiming, and torturing.
  
  One blurb on the back posited that if Flannery O'Connor could come back from the dead, she would have written something like Omnivores. I disagree wholeheartedly with that bizarrely hyperbolic statement. More likely, if Charles Addams came back from the dead, got together with John Waters, and took a creative writing class taught by Ottessa Moshfegh, then that might yield this book.
• 
  Kaela

  Um...wtf did I just read??
  
  It was incredibly weird and, at times, also incredibly gross. It was kind of like the scene of a horrific accident, I know I should probably stop looking at it but couldn't turn my head away.
  I must admit part of me was compelled to keep going just to see where it was all headed and if the madness had any point to it.
  If there was some point underneath all the absurdity, I really didn't understand what it was.
  There's a tagline on my copy, 'Omnivores reads like a cartoon with a soul', and all I can think is the quotee must have watched a lot of Ren & Stimpy in their childhood to come up with that - it's the only cartoon twisted enough to come close this novel.
  Thankfully for me, it was a short read that only took a few hours to finish...though perhaps I should have stopped looking and saved my brain from it all.
  It will definitely be memorable, I'll give it that.
  
  Note, if you're thinking of reading this book, I would warn you that it probably has nearly every trigger warning in it, at least to some degree. So proceed with caution if there's any content you might be sensitive to.
• 
  Grace Ross

  This book captured a saturated, slightly uneasy tone throughout all the very unhinged plotlines - akin to Matilda's family. Think Miss Trunchbull. The feeling you may have add while watching her make that kid eat that giant piece of chocolate cake, and sling around that ball and chain or whatever, is very much at the core of this novel. While reading, I was loving it, but also holding the book a little far away from me as I read it. If you're looking for a crazy story happening around a semi-normal main character, this is definitely for you! I loved Millets story telling, and honestly just looking at the cover of this book brings back the exact feeling I had while I was reading it - even months later.
• 
  sam

  i genuinely have no idea what to say about this book. the reviews talk about how it's funny or feminist and i did not get either of those at all. this book was just horror to me. it made me wildly uncomfortable the whole way through. started reading it late and night and kept reading "just 1 more chapter" so i could end on a less horrifying note for the night and ended up reading all of part 1 before i could go to bed because it just didn't stop being gruesome and unsettling. i literally don't know if i loved or hated this book. ??????? what the fuck.
• 
  Dan

  I don’t think there’s really a way to describe the prose, but it sure is something. Omnivores is at times chaotic, at times hilarious, at times horrifying. An psychotic tale of uncontrolled appetites that escalates in the strangest ways and at an exponential pace.
  
  Girlfriend found this book in a random ‘free’ box on the street, and I’d have never heard of it otherwise. I am happy fate put it in my path.
• 
  Samuel

  A wonderful read; masterfully written with a vocabulary rarely rivaled; as funny as it was creepy. Millet created a terrifying and alluring world for us to inhabit briefly. “Murderous rampage in Toledo.”
• 
  Brandon

  Omnivores is a very creative and interesting book. It reminds me of Vonnegut, but perhaps a little more difficult to unpack. I think it's a great debut novel, and I look forward to seeing what Millet has to offer in her future work.
• 
  Eva

  Definitely a fun read and interesting story. I enjoyed the character of Little Billy, made me laugh. Im not sure about the rating because i really did enjoy this book, but i felt like it lacked something for me personally. Would recommend it!
• 
  Andrew

  Awful.
• 
  Jenna

  This shit is fucked.
• 
  Aharon

  Garden-variety post-something fever dream, from the school of Dad's Nuke (but 30+ years later).
• 
  mait | coffee_mait

  lmao what the fuck
• 
  Jared Busch

  The funniest early-Coen Brothers movie never filmed.
• 
  Timbo

  Surreal and darkly funny.
• 
  Adriannne

  I loved Millet's weird magical writing. The beginning of the book was my favorite, I was less interested as the book strayed away from the real. But the very end of the book was really beautiful.
• 
  Ria

  Great, quick read. Loved the absolutely unhinged third act.
• 
  Kat Goss

  This book took me on such a journey. A thoroughly juicy and enjoyable read. The kind I might reach for annually.
• 
  Zoe

  Powerful. Exhausting!
• 
  Liz

  Odd book. Reminiscent of Chuck Pahlaniuk, who I used to love. I think I just am not in the mood for this type of read. Seemed to be a satire commenting on the evolution of humanity. For that, I'd go back to Kurt Vonnegut before picking up another Lydia Millet book. Loved "My Happy Life", but this was a let down.
• 
  Lisa

  I have loved Lydia Millet's books, including the "how the Dead Dream" trilogy. This one, though, was too gruesome for me. It certainly starts out with a bang, quickly introducing wonderfully strange characters. The torture of living creates at the hands of "Bill" was more than I could stomach. I'm a wimp.