Book Review

I should preface this by saying two things.
1) I do not choose books because Oprah happened to put a sticker on them. In this case, Hubby bought the book and I'm not sure he knows who Oprah is!
2) I often don't like Oprah's choices. I didn't realize this was an Oprah pick till I was halfway through (as our copy doesn't have the sticker).

That said, I once again must disagree with Oprah on this book. It was very disapointing. Here's what I liked:

The author did a magnificent job with the language. It was beautiful. And the vocabulary was astounding - the big words were used appropriately, and in such a way that they were easy to understand. That's an impressive feat. The book also set up a really neat discussion of what it is to communicate. I really liked that aspect.

(possible spoiler?)

Unfortunately, I was completely frustrated by the end. There was absolutely no justice at all. Maybe I missed the point of the book. Maybe the whole point was the dogs. But frankly, as much as I enjoyed the dogs, I was in it for the boy. I felt the book was about the boy's journey to seek justice. About his determination to face the uncle. But I guess I was wrong, because he never even had the chance to hug his mom.

All I can hope is that the dogs, making their own decision (of course, because apparently that was the point of the story I missed), wound up happy.

**Author (via Oprah.com) says he meant this book to be a tragedy. Give me a happy ending any day!