The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein)

[***] ISBN: 9780061537936

This wasn't really the piece of light reading I thought it would be. There are certainly some fun parts--mostly where Enzo, the narrator, gets to be more of a dog and his owner gets to be more of a race car driver. But to get to these, the reader is forced to endure personal hardships for the humans as well as the dog. I think I get it; I get what the author was striving for-contrast between the good parts of life and the bad. The problem is that the bad parts, and the dog's intellectual ruminations about them, felt forced. They didn't work for me. The dog was thinking, excuse the pun, way over his head. I could have bought the dog narrator much more if he was ever more doggish, intelligent, but doggish-running on instinct, less obsessed with opposable thumbs, more confused about human motives and time, and through these confused observations providing the same commentary that this author makes explicit. I was glad I made it all of the way through this, but I'm not sure I recommend it, even for a dog lover.