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Review: DOG CRAZY, by Meg Donohue

WK found this wonderful gem used at one of her favorite bookstores, Changing Hands. Where would we be without our indie bookstores???

The cover kind of makes the novel look like cute chick lit, but it is so much deeper and more serious and it contains some of the most beautiful, visceral evocations of dog / human love and what it’s like to lose a beloved pet. Donohue has an MFA from Columbia and a BA in comparative literature from Dartmouth and it shows.

Maggie is a young psychologist specializing in pet bereavement. She’s just taken the plunge and relocated from her Philadelphia hometown to San Francisco to open her new practice when her beloved dog, Toby, is stricken with cancer and dies. She’s so traumatized that she ends up an agoraphobe (like her mother), unable to leave her house. One of her new clients is Anya, whose brother has hired Maggie to help his sister overcome the loss of her dog. Anya’s dropped out of school and lost her job over her trauma. Problem is, Anya doesn’t want to overcome her dog’s death because she believes her dog is still alive but has been kidnapped. No one in Anya’s family believes her and Maggie is unsure whether the dog is still alive but is compelled by Anya’s deep convictions to help her search. In order to do that, she, of course, must go out of her home, which she does initially with the help of her friend’s therapy dog, Giselle, then with the help of Anya.

The story is part mystery – is Anya’s dog still alive?, part story of friendship between the two young women, and part psychological journey to mental wellness. You just know Maggie will end up with one of the many dogs she helps along her journey – from the stray, to the rescue with behavioral problems preventing his adoption, to Giselle the therapy dog – and you’re rooting for her to take one into her home and love him like she did Toby.

It’s a wonderful book particularly for anyone suffering the loss of a pet who needs to know they are far from alone.

Sofia, our dog, poses with the book, and she gives it five scrumptious bonito flakes!

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Review: CRAIG AND FRED, by Craig Grossi

I loved this book! I saw it in my local library when I went there to get a novel for a book club. I haven’t read many military books, but how could anyone resist this cover! (BTW: since it’s a dog book, sister Sofia poses with it, and I love how she looks all serious and at-attention :))

CRAIG & FRED is the true story of a Marine – and Purple Heart recipient, Craig – who became very attached to a stray during his service in Afghanistan and managed to adopt the dog, Fred, and transport him back to his home in Virginia. You know the story has a happy ending because of all the pictures of Fred happy in the U.S. but it’s still riveting watching how it all unfolds.

Craig meets Fred when he finds him rummaging through garbage on the compound the troop has set up in Sangin, Afghanistan. Despite the dog’s being hungry and homeless in a country devastated by war and the murderous land mines the Taliban has hidden all throughout the desert, Fred is trusting and sociable instead of scared and defensive, as one might expect. Fred is taken in by the troop, and he immediately becomes best buds with Craig, though he is liked by pretty much everyone. He likes being around the guys so much, he sometimes follows them out on their missions, which can be a problem. At one point, the troop is scouting the desert in the middle of the night – they go out during the darkest hours so as not to be spotted by Taliban – when Fred sees some movement. He barks, and the men discover there are two people out planting mines. Fortunately, Fred’s barking does not alert Taliban and put the men in danger, but Fred is now deemed too risky and is kept at the compound. Oftentimes dogs who become too much of a risk are, horribly, euthanized by the military. So that is always a fear Craig carries with him while Fred is still in Afghanistan. This, combined with the fact that dogs are not allowed at Leatherneck, a base Craig stays at between deployments, provides much of the conflict for the book. But Fred is so endearing to everyone that people either help Craig smuggle him in or pretend not to notice.

As I said, I don’t read many military books and I learned so much about what it’s like to live in a compound, defuse bombs, and be attacked. One late combat scene does not end without casualties and it is after Craig returns that he realizes he is suffering from PTSD from it. That’s when Fred really helps him. It’s hard for Craig to talk to anyone about what happened and Fred helps simply by being there. When people casually ask about his dog, Craig tells them he got Fred in Afghanistan, and that opens into a conversation about his military service. I never realized how hard it is for veterans to talk about their experiences once they’re back home. I’ve had culture shock after returning home from study abroad and after reading this book I realized their experience is that times about 1000. By the way, the end of the book contains memorials to the fallen men, which I thought was wonderful.

Part of the book is also about a road journey across the U.S. that Craig and Fred take with Craig’s friend, Josh, also a veteran. I loved this part of the book as well because it’s kind of a journey of self discovery in that Craig has to figure out what he wants to do with his life now that he’s finished with combat and unsure whether a desk job will suit him. In his own way Fred is influential in that as well.

An excellent story – and you will fall in love with Craig and Fred, even if you’re a cat 🙂 Witty Kitty gives this one five bonito flakes!

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Review: THE RIGHT SIDE, by Spencer Quinn

Because this is a book featuring a dog – and a black dog at that – we have graciously allowed our sister, Sofia, to model it 🙂

Witty kitty, being a cat, of course loves cat books, but she can most definitely enjoy a really good dog book as well. Especially because of that dog sister of hers… Anyway, Spencer Quinn is the author of the super engaging, comical dog / human mystery series, Chet and Bernie, and also the children’s series, Bowser and Birdie. This is not the same kind of dog book as those, in that the dog here does not narrate any part of the story, and for much of the story he does not have a name. But he does have a strong personality, strong opinions, and he helps his human, LeAnne, solve her mystery. So we love him! This book is also quite a bit more sobering than the others.

LeAnne has just returned from the war in Afghanistan, during which she lost one of her eyes. She’s angry, suffering from PTSD, and is trying put her life back together now that combat no longer seems an option. Her Army superiors ceaselessly interrogate her about the attack that disfigured her, wanting to find out who was behind it. But she doesn’t want to try to remember. Too painful. So, LeAnne flees the hospital and goes in search of the missing daughter of a friend she’s made while in the hospital, who died of her wounds. Along the way, LeAnne meets this mysteriously smart, knowing dog, and he helps her solve the missing girl mystery, and in his own way, helps her learn to trust again.

LeAnne was a very compelling character – as was the dog – and WK found herself really rooting for LeAnne to find the girl, figure out what happened in Afghanistan, come to terms with her past, overcome her PTSD and get a grasp on her future, and befriend the dog 🙂

WK gives THE RIGHT SIDE five bonito flakes!

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Review: DOG MEDICINE, by Julie Barton

I ended up really liking this book. But I admit I had to struggle through the first third of it. It’s not easy for animal lovers because Barton writes about all the dogs and pets she had before getting her beloved Bunker, and they don’t all fare as well as he did.

Since early adulthood, Barton struggled with clinical depression, though she wasn’t initially diagnosed with it. It stemmed from a horribly abusive childhood at the hands of her older brother, which her mother somehow didn’t realize was happening or just didn’t care about. It’s horrendously sad and you really feel for her. She has a breakdown in New York after starting her first job and returns to her hometown, Columbus, Ohio, to recover. She struggles with her illness, is originally diagnosed, ever so wrongfully and harmfully, with anorexia, eventually receives a proper diagnosis, and then finds Bunker, who changes everything. Through his love – his sheer existence, she is able to begin her life for real, get a job, move to another city on the opposite coast, become independent.

Early on, Bunker gets very sick and the lengths Barton goes to to save him – and thus herself – are beautifully heartbreaking. He, it turns out, needs her just as much as she needs him. You end up empathizing so much with her, loving and needing her best friend like she does, and feeling her panic when he can’t always be around her. That’s what was so amazing about her writing: she drew you into her story, her life so powerfully that you felt like you became her. Even some of her more inscrutable behavior, you came to accept and even want to defend. I’ve never suffered from serious depression before, and by the end, I felt like I really understood the mental illness, the panic, the despair, and how people who go off their meds can tragically end up suicidal.

So glad I stuck with this book. It was so richly rewarding.

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Review: FENWAY AND HATTIE, by Victoria J. Coe

I found this book at my library. Cover was just so enticing 🙂 And I’ve read so many wonderful middle-grade books lately. I read it in one sitting and loved it. Fenway a is jolly, spunky little Jack Russell terrier (and who doesn’t love a terrier!) who loves his “short human,” Hattie. One day the family moves from their Boston-area apartment to the suburbs. Fenway is deeply confused. Where is his beloved dog park? Why is the new floor where Hattie puts his food bowl so slippery and scary? And, most importantly, why is Hattie so interested in her new next-door neighbor and in learning to play softball and not with him? Fenway must find a way to get Hattie back. He tries all kinds of things that don’t work, some of which make you just cringe knowing how much they will backfire – such as eating her new mitt! Makes sense though – if the mitt is taking your best friend from you, well then you must destroy that blasted mitt! But finally, he does it – he and Hattie both adjust and find happiness in their new lives.

This book was cute and funny, but it also made me think about how difficult it can be for pets to adjust to a new environment. One time when we got to our new apartment, my cat wandered around for five seconds then went straight back into her carrier and cried in it all night. I couldn’t entice her into bed with me for anything. Moves can by discomfiting and even scary for everyone in the family, most of all those who can’t be told in so many words not to worry, that everything will be okay. Take time and care with your fur babies!