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A review by cordreads
How to Talk to Your Dog About Murder by Emily Soderberg
funny
lighthearted
2.5
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wanted so badly to love this book. It reminded me of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone which is a humorous cozy mystery, and for the first half of the book it was shaping up to be just that. If you are a mystery reader who likes to be along for the ride and soak up the vibes, then this might be the book for you!
I liked our main character, Nikki, and the Van Meer family. I thought they were well-written and unique, especially Nikki because of her job as a "dog whisperer". I also watch dogs for various families and the funny experiences I've had, even the blind dog that I watch, was a piece of her dogwalking experiences. I also enjoyed the various asides written in for Nikki, such as her thought process while working through the possible suspects. I did want Nikki to stick up for herself a bit more than she did! In particular, Reginald (the dog) and the Van Meers lived outside of the city and it seemed like a far drive for Nikki to be making every day. Knowing how much a drive to can make or break a dogwalking gig, I wish she'd been more firm in not walking Reginald.
Funny enough, Nikki was also coming to the conclusion that any one of the family members could have walked Reginald every day, but that seemed to magically get resolved when the murder suspect was revealed at the end. Other than that minor issue, my biggest issue with the novel was was that the POV was confusing. Nikki was the main character but the POV would occasionally shift to what seemed like other people's thoughts. It makes me think that the book was written with a different POV to begin with and then switched to Nikki's POV later on. Additionally, because we are contending with a family of characters, plus our main character Nikki, the cast is already quite large. When side characters would come up I frequently found myself asking, "who is that?" Including Nikki's friends and her partner made sense to give context to her life, but including the downstairs neighbor seemed irrelevant to the storyline. I see the potential for the neighbor to be more relevant if this is to be turned into a multi-book series following Nikki as the main character.
Overall, I enjoyed my time reading the book, but the confusion caused by the POV and the extra characters resulted in my rating of 2.5 stars.
I wanted so badly to love this book. It reminded me of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone which is a humorous cozy mystery, and for the first half of the book it was shaping up to be just that. If you are a mystery reader who likes to be along for the ride and soak up the vibes, then this might be the book for you!
I liked our main character, Nikki, and the Van Meer family. I thought they were well-written and unique, especially Nikki because of her job as a "dog whisperer". I also watch dogs for various families and the funny experiences I've had, even the blind dog that I watch, was a piece of her dogwalking experiences. I also enjoyed the various asides written in for Nikki, such as her thought process while working through the possible suspects. I did want Nikki to stick up for herself a bit more than she did! In particular, Reginald (the dog) and the Van Meers lived outside of the city and it seemed like a far drive for Nikki to be making every day. Knowing how much a drive to can make or break a dogwalking gig, I wish she'd been more firm in not walking Reginald.
Funny enough, Nikki was also coming to the conclusion that any one of the family members could have walked Reginald every day, but that seemed to magically get resolved when the murder suspect was revealed at the end. Other than that minor issue, my biggest issue with the novel was was that the POV was confusing. Nikki was the main character but the POV would occasionally shift to what seemed like other people's thoughts. It makes me think that the book was written with a different POV to begin with and then switched to Nikki's POV later on. Additionally, because we are contending with a family of characters, plus our main character Nikki, the cast is already quite large. When side characters would come up I frequently found myself asking, "who is that?" Including Nikki's friends and her partner made sense to give context to her life, but including the downstairs neighbor seemed irrelevant to the storyline. I see the potential for the neighbor to be more relevant if this is to be turned into a multi-book series following Nikki as the main character.
Overall, I enjoyed my time reading the book, but the confusion caused by the POV and the extra characters resulted in my rating of 2.5 stars.