I read The Art of Racing in the Rain for this month's "Weather" theme in my online book club, The Reading Cove.
I can definitely see why the book is popular with many dog lovers. Enzo the dog narrates with a very high level of intelligence, dry humor and sentimentality. The analogy of his observations about human life and handling a race car in the rain was insightful at first but quickly felt pretty overindulgent and milked for all it was worth.
I found much of the book depressing and therefore skimmable. Enzo's owner Denny suffers a terrible loss followed by serious legal issues, all through Enzo's POV. So for me, something that started out cute, became surprisingly disturbing and maudlin before too long.
All in all, NYT bestseller or not, I can't say I would recommend this book to people who haven't read it unless you're emotionally tied to dogs, otherwise you may find that it just plain gets silly even before the halfway mark and your reading time would be much better spent on something else. This was better suited for a short story. 300 pages from the dog's POV became a bit ridiculous and begs a raised eyebrow at the emotional stability of the author. 2.75 stars.
I can definitely see why the book is popular with many dog lovers. Enzo the dog narrates with a very high level of intelligence, dry humor and sentimentality. The analogy of his observations about human life and handling a race car in the rain was insightful at first but quickly felt pretty overindulgent and milked for all it was worth.
I found much of the book depressing and therefore skimmable. Enzo's owner Denny suffers a terrible loss followed by serious legal issues, all through Enzo's POV. So for me, something that started out cute, became surprisingly disturbing and maudlin before too long.
All in all, NYT bestseller or not, I can't say I would recommend this book to people who haven't read it unless you're emotionally tied to dogs, otherwise you may find that it just plain gets silly even before the halfway mark and your reading time would be much better spent on something else. This was better suited for a short story. 300 pages from the dog's POV became a bit ridiculous and begs a raised eyebrow at the emotional stability of the author. 2.75 stars.
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