Great book, although I do get a bit bored with the “dog worshiping” he does in all the books I seem to be reading of his lately. The story kept me interested, most of the characters where well written. I would have probably given it 5 stars except I didn’t care for the ending. I kept expecting a finale that never took place and there were a couple of things that occurred with the main antagonist that really needed to be explained in order for the ending to work. The ending wasn’t exciting nor did part of it make sense. Still a decent book. ( )

February 5, 2024
I'm not a huge fan of Popular Fiction. It has a place in the world to be sure, but I was always more drawn to the classics, and the current class of heavy hitters. Dean Koontz can be considered a Popular Fiction author, but in reality, he is so much more; he raises the genre to new levels, and his books always contain some mystical shiznit. He is also extremely prolific, as it seems that he is publishing a new work every 3 or so months. But these aren't the works of a hack. Each book or series that Koontz has developed is extremely crafty. As for "Devoted", he continues this trend. Like a lot of his stories, there's something always coming from left field. In this case, it's a dog with a genius level IQ that understands human language, actually, he is part of a growing cadre of these ultra intelligent dogs that are all over the world. The star of the story, a young boy of 11 who had been diagnosed to be a nonverbal autistic, turns out to be the only person, thus far, that is actually able to hear the dog telepathically speak. The kid winds up speaking when the whole family is subject to hitmen and other assorted hurt mongers. Listen, this story goes all over the place; it really blew me away, and as with a lot of Koontz's stories, the ending is always worth the wait. I would read this if I were you.

Read more of my review on my blog The Thugbrarian Review
https://wordpress.com/post/thugbrarianreview.com ( )

Disclaimer - I love dogs, and that is one of the reasons that I'm a Dean Koontz fan.
This book is amazing - a story about a boy and his dog, about evolution, both man-made and natural.


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I love Koontz but this was too much telepathy and golden retriever. ( )

Woo Hoo! Another fabulous read from Dean Koontz that shows his love for dogs, especially Golden Retrievers.

There is so much going on in Devoted that I frantically turned the pages, worried for the new friends I have made. Dean Koontz is a master storyteller and I was so engrossed in the story I read until the wee hours of the morning, having to know who and how many will die. He takes a story that I think could be predictable and twists and turns it, leaving my head spinning.

I love that he gave an autistic character, Woody is an eleven year old child whose father died and makes him and his mother a target of more than the evil villains trying to hide what they have done, the starring role.

His ability to make the dogs in his stories seem human gives me so many good feelings and he takes them to a level that I don’t think I could ever dream up myself.

I highly recommend Devoted by Dean Koontz.

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