Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey with an Exceptional Labrador by Stephen Kuusisto

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ajsterkel's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.0

In the 1990s, the author lost his job as a poetry professor at a university and decided that he needed to get a guide dog and expand his world. He'd been blind since birth, but his parents saw his disability as shameful, so he learned to navigate without a dog or a white cane. It was extremely dangerous and left him confined to the towns he'd memorized.

The author completely transforms his life over the course of this memoir. For him, it was empowering to admit that he needed help and to educate himself about his disability. It takes an astounding amount of energy to pretend you're not blind. I love seeing how much joy and freedom he got from his dog. Even though this memoir touches on difficult topics (such as growing up blind with alcoholic parents), it's never depressing. It left me smiling.

I like the subject of this book, but the writing style is not my thing. I read the first 10 pages and said, "I'm pretty sure this dude graduated from Iowa Writers Workshop." Then he confirmed that he did! It's very easy for me to recognize their brand of insufferably pretentious weirdness. Sometimes the writing style is weird for the sake of weird. Also, the author quotes from a ton of other sources, so half the book is written by other people. It got on my nerves.

Even though I didn't like the writing, I want to find more stories like this one. I want nonfiction books about animals that are not textbooks and not sappy. I think Stephen Kuusisto found the balance between informational and readable. I appreciate that. 
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