Reviews

I’ve read some weird stuff - this takes the biscuit. It’s unnecessarily long with little to no excitement, the message is plain as day and it comes off as trying to hard.

esumi's review against another edition

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The premise sounded interesting but it's just this lady going off on a tangent. I guess I expected more plot?

realpaulina's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Crazy story but I liked how it highlighted the difficult subject of how life changes after becoming a mother.

sassyram's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

s4peace's review against another edition

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dark reflective medium-paced

2.75

This book is so damn weird and yet I couldn't stop reading it. It's like looking T a piece of modern art, feeling things but not being able to articulate what you just read in simple terms.

There's violence that is both gross and yet poetic. The writer uses transforming into a dog as a journey to probably explain post partum depression or just depression of a mother left alone with her child without enough support. There are parts of this story that are so harsh and so real but they about her being a mother who has to do everything rather than her transformation into a dog. It's a scathing look at the reality of motherhood and the kind of loneliness that comes with it.

There are parts where the story gets repetitive and the artsy stuff is way too metaphorical even for my taste. I also noticed some comments early on about white feminism which made me cringe a little but that's few and far between. Overall I commend the attempt and would even go as far as to say I enjoyed the book but it was a very very very weird book.

julsilv's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I waited a really long time to write this because I wanted to let this book sit for a bit but honestly I waited and waited for some huge thing to hit me and I got nothing.

I wanted this book to be profound so badly and, to be honest, a ton of individual parts were. There were sentences that I read and then read again and had to sit with (which I always think are the sign of a good book). I also was thinking about the book haunted, for the whole first half while I was reading.

It portrayed motherhood as the horrifying experience it is for so many woman. I literally kept thinking to myself if this is motherhood I DEF don’t want to do this. But to be fair her husband is horrible in the most passive way possible. The author took the little minutia that no one pays attention to and then exposed the actions for how damaging they can be to women/wives in really creative ways. I thought that aspect was impressive.

However, it just never came together for me. I didn’t know what the point or end meant at all. I’m so down for the whole thing being a commentary and I’m sure you could interpret this a ton of ways but I almost didn’t know what to think at all. And like I said, I was waiting for it to hit me and it never did.

Overall, so much potential just not enough execution at the end. Some parts were riveting, unique and thought provoking, others felt meaningless.

sarahcrowley's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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