Customer Reviews:
 Author abused my precious time January 4, 2009
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I love to read but have very little time to devote to it. So, when I give my time to a book, I choose carefully what to read and then expect the book to give me a nice payoff in the end. With this book, there were all sorts of glowing reviews, I love dogs, and I thought I couldn't go wrong. Initially, it paid me back beautifully. The author is a gifted descriptive writer, the characters were interesting, and the plot seemed rich with possibility. Even when some passages droned on too long (oh for a good editor here!), I stuck with it because I expected that final payoff based on the good things I had read thus far.
Then, when I read the final page, I kept trying to find the "remaining pages", the ones that would make sense of all that I had read, the ones that would give the payoff. Because none of that happened in the final pages as written by the author.
I went back and re-read the final chapters, hoping that I had missed something that would suddenly shed the light that I had obviously missed, but nothing. Finally, out of desperation, I searched for reviews of the book to see what it was that others found so intriguing about the book. That was when I found the hundreds of people who said the same thing I felt about the book. Too bad I didn't seek out the reviews before I believed the highly publicized good reviews.
In the end, I feel like the author lured me on and then stuck his tongue out at me in the last chapters. Shame on him for wasting my precious time in this way. I would like to see other things that this author writes, but I will do a vast amount of research before I go to the expense to buy the book and give up the time to read it.
Lame Ending for an Otherwise Great read January 3, 2009
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was all set to give this book a 5 star rating, but the ending kept me from doing that. It just took away from an otherwise great read.
Too Bad January 3, 2009
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
(SPOILERS GALORE) The ending felt like a punch to the gut. To heck with the Hamlet business. I admit I wanted a happy ending, but expected at least a wonderful ending. What a waste after making us care so much about Edgar, his strange muteness, the dogs, the Sawtelle dog line, the whereabouts of the bottle of poison, and getting Claude found out. It was a magical book up till the end. But everything conveniently gets ruined. Everything (without the training, those pups in the wild will end up feral, not the "next dogs"). The ether business was cool and dreamlike, but then Edgar's mother gets held back in a ridiculous leg-lock??? What the? Ugh. It didn't feel heroically tragic, just kind of stupid. Edgar (and his dogs) seemed much smarter and more special than Claude was evil. So what a disappointment. And the author just HAD to ruin the Almondine relationship in a cruel way. I hate when authors are so miserable. It's easy to depict destruction and ruin, it's hard to create something wonderful. I was excited about being able to recommend this book; but having finished it, I can not. Very, very close to being a great book. Too bad.
 a book for book lovers January 3, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
How wonderful and rewarding to know that America can produce and sponsor SO MUCH MORE than Harlequin crap or the forever boring "mysteries". How deeply satisfying to be able to delve head first into a book and lose yourself, lingering on lines and words as if savoring a delicious piece of chocolate. I was given a gift card to a Barns and Nobles for Christmas and picked up this copy, intrigued by the jacket picture, (YES, the jacket IS important and the artists who do them don't get half the recognition they deserve!!!), being pulled in after I read a few lines sneaking further into the book and realizing: I need to take this home and savor it. And this I did and am reading it sparingly because it is one of those books that once I am finished reading it I will feel as if I lost a friend. So I coddle this friend gently as it gives me joy every day. I am not done yet reading but I am glad I found this gem. Being a writer myself I gain with this book and hope the author will find courage enough to give us more when he remembers how fine this was.
 Did not enjoy January 3, 2009
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I did not enjoy the writting style or the story. I found it very hard to get into. Just not my style of book.
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