W. Bruce Cameron

Josh Michaels, a website and user interface designer, still heartbroken from his girlfriend dumping him months ago, has a very pregnant dumped on him by his neighbor. The neighbor has a fraught story of the dog being dumped on him by his girlfriend who left, and having to leave the country immediately to bail out his brother in France. Josh has never had a dog, doesn't want a dog, but when his neighbor takes off, leaving the dog behind, he has to do the best he can.

Especially when the dog, show more Lucy, goes into labor.

As we get to know Josh, we find he's emotionally traumatized by the breakup of his family when he was a teen, and has no idea how to handle relationships. As he gets to know Lucy, the puppies she raises in his home, and Kerri, the very nice lady from the local animal shelter, Josh gets an education in dogs, but also emotional education, healing, and growth.

And then it's time to give up the puppies to their new homes, and Josh, who has always felt it's his job to keep his family together, decides he can't do it.

Cameron knows and loves dogs, and the people who love dogs. As many times as you'll want to whack Josh upside the head with a clue-by-four, he's never doing something stupid for the sake of the plot. He's doing it because he's emotionally damaged, has experienced rejection too many times, and has no idea how to express what he's really feeling. His pain, confusion, and even his joy when he gets a taste of it, are all quite real.

The dogs, from devoted momma Lucy to sweet, blind Cody, are delightful and heartwarming, and it makes total sense that confused, loyal, emotionally struggling Josh imagines it makes sense to keep all of them. I'm sidestepping the human relationships in this book, but they're well-handled, too.

This is a warm, sweet, heartwarming story. Recommended.

I bought this book. show less

First sentence: Maggie Rose is my girl. I am her dog. In my opinion, this means we should be together every moment.

Premise/plot: Lily revisits her friends the pigs [whom she met in an earlier book in the series] and meets a new friend, a donkey named Burrito. Burrito is having trouble fitting in/belonging. He's sold...but the other donkeys--older donkeys, don't want anything to do with him at all. Burrito LOVES the pigs from his old place and smells like a pig. Can Lily (who also smells show more like a pig) help Burrito fit into his new home? And will this lead to a bath???

My thoughts: I do love this series overall. This particular book in the series is fairly uneventful. Bryan, Maggie Rose's brother, goes with Maggie Rose, Lily, and their mom to the farm[s]. Bryan makes a possible new friend and discovers he likes horses. But other than learning that Lily likes to smell horse poop [I could have gone my whole life without needing to know that] not much happens. That being said, Lily is as adorable as ever. show less

I'm embarrassed by the fact that I liked this book as much as I did. While the author approaches his mission in a way I find singular, and does a number of neat little narrative tricks, I don't find him to me a masterful stylist. Irrespective, though, I'm struck by the fact that I just wanted to keep reading, and was sad when the book was over. Intellectually, I keep thinking things like, "the dog-protagonist's progression thorough his lives was trite and predictable," and "the author was show more unabashedly manipulative and trite," and even, "my boyfriend, who has amazing taste in books, would call this the worst sort of sentimental drivel." But the sad fact of the thing is this: I couldn't put it down. I know -- I KNOW -- that I was being manipulated, my love for my dogs and my complex feelings about losing animals that have been so important in my life were being shamelessly exploited. And yet, somehow, these facts that usually cause an involuntary sneer (that most unattractive of facial expressions) to slink across my face and slouch around while I indulge in a little mini-rant, these appalling facts didn't stop me from being hopelessly absorbed and feeling exactly what the author wanted me to feel. I am a pop-culture puppet. Alas. show less

I finished it because I was somewhat invested in the outcomes of the tribes' drama - it was compelling enough that I didn't put it down.

I think I like the author, based on his afterword. But, I really really didn't like the style of writing he chose to go with. It seemed really unnecessarily formal. During hunt/council meetings or important ceremonies, yeah, it would make sense for the characters to be speaking formally, but when they're just chatting, or arguing with each other, I didn't show more really get it. But also outside of dialogue, the writing style's just not for me. It was a little...much. A lot of other reviews have mentioned the genre of book as being Paleolithic Soap Opera, and I think that's what I'm not entirely sold on with the style. There are lines like "'Frightened Ones are bigger and they look different in ways for which I lack descriptive words.'" There are a bunch of other lines and scenes like this that add information that is completely unnecessary and just waste space. It is never ever relevant that one character couldn't find the words to describe something's appearance, so just have him describe them like normal or don't talk about it at all! It is totally irrelevant that Jean-Claude, the research assistant, loves pastries. Actually, pretty much everything in the present day with the professor was completely irrelevant. The very first scene of the book describes in great detail how the prof takes such pleasure in torturing the first-years in his class and it's such an irrelevant scene that while I was reading it I thought about putting the book down and after I was done reading it I immediately forgot about it and it didn't affect my understanding of the rest of the story.

Also there's bullshit like the paleolothic people using the phrases "man's side" and "woman's side" instead of right and left. Despite the fact that the word "left" is still used in the book, so just SAY LEFT. It's not like it's some new idea to portray paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies as disdainful of female bodies. It is a tired trope because people think it MUST BE TRUE so thanks history written by men from patriarchal societies who couldn't interpret their archaeological findings from any perspective other than their own. show less