Marley & Me (original 2005; edition 2008)

I enjoyed this book. And I cried like a baby at the end...maybe I cried a little too hard.
:) ( )

As expected, I cried through the last 30 pages or so. I wouldn't say this book was awesome, but it had some great laugh out loud moments, and I really appreciate books that can do that to me.

Of course I'm peeved that they bought Marley from a breeder even though the author had adopted the most wonderful dog from a shelter as a kid. Toward the end, the author was struggling with whether to put Marley through a surgery that might have been really hard on him as an old dog, and he was questioning the best thing to do considering there were other dogs out there in shelters who needed homes and were otherwise going to be put down. Kind of ironic, buddy, considering you bought your dog from a BREEDER!! I thought maybe he just didn't realize that until after they had gotten Marley. At the end, I thought they were going to redeem themselves since they went to check out a new lab from a local rescue organization. I was happy thinking they would adopt the dog. The book ends before you find out if they do or not though. Then I was reading in an interview that they didn't end up getting that dog, but the did get a well-behaved female lab. No mention of where she came from, but I have a horrible feeling they went to a breeder again with full knowledge of what is happening to all those poor homeless dogs in shelters. GRRRR
And what makes me even more angry is that even with how crazy and troublesome labs are portrayed in this book (doing thousands of dollars worth of damage, being really messy and mentally unstable), I'm sure people everywhere were off to their local breeder or even worse, pet store to get a lab. Gosh, I hate books and movies that spotlight purebreds.... ( )

Well, I liked the film based off of this book. The book I couldn't finish or even bother too. Maybe it's because I never had dogs or any animals at all myself, but this was just... blah. ( )

Very good book. Anyone who has ever even petted a dog ought to read it. ( )

I read this book just after getting a dog of my own, who is not quite as badly-behaved as Marley, but nearly so. It was fun to read and gave some insight into why we put up with the smelly, disobedient beasts. ( )