Scan barcode
josie9's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
koreanlinda's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I wasn’t trying to make a sentence—I was trying to break free. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey. (p.4)
All freedom is relative—you know too well—and sometimes it’s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there,… But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough. (p.216)
This book fails at being a novel in a traditional sense. It is more of pieces of experiences, observations, and contemplation written most poetically and strewn together into one binding. It has its minimal structure in loosely chronological order: three parts of Little Dog’s life in childhood, adolescence, and after college. If you look for a clear storyline, you quickly get lost. It’s more effective to absorb each chapter as a lump of colors, senses, and emotions.
I am a daughter of a working-class immigrant family. What I witness in people’s lives in this fictional Hartford, CT easily disqualifies my family of that title. These people are not working-poor, they are working-dirt-poor. When we just landed in the farthest corner of Staten Island (also the farthest corner of NYC), my family lived in a side door of a multi-family house with a low ceiling and two small windows. Yet we were never starved. We were not subjected to physical violence by others or each other. We were never exposed to substance abuse or fallen into never-ending drinking.
Yet there are parts where I see myself in Little Dog’s life. I suffered from my mother’s beating when I was young, and her psychological abuse lasted a lot longer. She got a job at a nail salon, which used to be dominated by all those women new from Korea, and now taken over by those from Vietnam.
In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I’m here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior, and charitable. In the nail salon, one’s definition of sorry is deranged into a new word entirely, one that’s charged and reused as both power and defacement at once. Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouth must eat.
My mother often cried and drank soju after work while spitting out stories from the salon. I wanted to tell her to quit her job, but I couldn’t. What else could she do? While spending most of her waking hours there, my mother formed her ideas of people living in the United States: poor Asians and Latinas were allies; well-off Whites had everything that they didn’t earn. I completely understood her initial distrust in my White partner when he tried to enter our family.
A side note to readers who get triggered by the content of animal abuse: skip pages 38-39, 41, 43-44. There is also a talk about veal calves trapped in cages on p.216. It is short but renders an inaccurate analogy of comparing the limited freedom of the three main characters to that of the calves. The lives of Trevor, Lan, and Rose are indeed limited by their environment beyond their control, but the range of their free will is significantly bigger than that of a veal calf. Also, the veal calves never become a perpetrator of violence themselves, unlike humans.
Review by Linda (she/they) in Jan. 2022
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Letter writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Sexual violence, and Death of parent
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Xenophobia, and Classism
anyname's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and Abortion
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug use, Blood, Abandonment, and War
Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Excrement, Vomit, and Medical content
geneebee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Sexism, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail
lauravg11's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Sexual content and Death of parent
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, and Abortion
costcomuffin154's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual content, and Colonisation
lilkstew's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, and Blood
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, and Abortion
ocean's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, and Murder
charity1313's review against another edition
Language was beautiful, poetic - as expected - and made for some good quotes. Made a stark contrast to the graphic nature of much of the content.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence