This is more a 3.5 star rating--I appreciate the astute voice in these stories, but they seem, at times, devoid of genuine feeling. I appreciate the animals that populate the stories, and not so much the humans. perhaps that was a very intentional clever thing that millet aimed for. my favorite stories were "girl and giraffe", "love in infant monkeys", and "the lady and the dragon", which was very, very funny. the last one, "walking bird", was also oddly poignant, more so than most of the middle stories, which I felt had more of a detached voice where I wasn't able to connect with the characters even if they were famous people such as jimmy carter or chomsky. she is definitely a clever writer all-around, and I'd be curious to read her other works.