Book - The Art of Racing in the Rain

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The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein
Amazon Product Link

Book Description

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope--a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.



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I don't exactly when and where I got this book.. I do know the why though.

It's about a dog. Or at least, the cover had a dog.

I firmly believe in the not to judge a book by its cover concept, but feature a dog on the cover (or have the title indicate something dog-related) and there's a pretty high chance that I'll just snag it.

This was a very pleasant read. The fact that I managed to finish it in a 24-hour span says enough too.

So. Enzo. Enzo the dog. Philosophical. I liked his thinking, though he was sometimes just smarmy. His obsession with the Mongolian dogs was really touching, and I teared up every time he mentioned about that.

Basically, the book is of Enzo, who details his life with Denny. Denny works. Denny drives cars. Denny drives racing cars. Denny falls in love. Denny gets married. Denny has a child. The wife dies. Denny struggles with custody, money, respect, etc...

Throughout though, Enzo adds tidbits of his take on things. How dog is superior to monkey. The importance of thumbs. The zebra in us. Mostly, it's how he adapts Denny's philosophies on driving (racing) into the daily lives of human beings.

Enzo is obsessed with his reincarnation and the Mongolian dogs. The book ends with a very predictable cliche, which I thought worked with this book and was very sweet. However, the way Denny responded didn't seem quite right.

If Denny had known of Enzo's obsession with reincarnating as a human, then I believe Denny would have had that kind of reaction he had. However, Denny had no way to know about it. So, what if a kid comes up, makes small talk and say his name is Enzo?

I am a dog lover and owned several dogs... perhaps this never happened to me, so I don't find it viable... it would be lovely if someone came up to me and mentioned something that would remind me of my previous dogs... but I don't think I would suspect anything about reincarnations. I don't know...

Anyway, it worked for this book, and you bet it I was bawling my eyes out. Lovely story.

Note: Some people are a overly opposed to cliches, so this book is filled with quite some cliches. But I thought it all fit in nicely enough.