The Story of a Lost Vet, and a Dog

The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs by Nick Trout

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A 3.5 stars book, but I gave a 4 due to the immensely funny and accurate descriptions of a true introvert, interesting pathological facts of diseases and the numerous and appropriate quotes from numerous books, movies and plays.

I was looking for a happy and quick read (chick-lit, or feel good story) when I noticed this book in the Kindle store. I'm not usually a reader of stories about dogs, cats or other pets. However, I did have fun reading about a dog in The Art of Racing in the Rain, a cat in Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat, a duck in Enslaved by Ducks...and even parrots in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story . . . with Wings.

On the other hand, I had mostly unfavorable experiences with pet/animal books. They were either too cheesy, too touchy-feely, have a weak plot, or extremely boring. We know all pet owners love their dogs/cats/other pets to death, and they all seem to be the perfect and loyal companion and friend. However, to have the literary skill to convince your readers to feel the same is another story. The most recent one I had read, Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man would had been okay if the author did not boast about himself that much and focused more on his rooster, other pets and his new family.

This fictional story was...not a bad read, but far from the caliber of the books that I had mentioned up there. The story was about Cyrus Mills, who is a Veterinarian pathologist himself, inherited a Vet clinics from his estranged Father after he died. He has some legal issues with his license where he came from (North Carolina), and was hoping to quickly sell the practice to use the money for his legal expense. However, as he encounters one after another of his Father's old clients and their pets, things are not going exactly the way he wanted them to be.

This is truly a character-based book, and defining and building each of these characters was obviously the author's strong suit. There's Cyrus, who's a true introvert and not exactly good with people or pets, so he chose pathology as his emphasis. He believed his Father, the beloved Dr. Cobb, had wronged him and his Mom by spending too much time at work. Lewis, Cobb's old practice partner who seems to be always running some mysterious errands. Doris, the receptionist who evidently showed Cyrus that she takes orders from no one, especially him, Denise, a poor teenager who's pregnant, as well as her cat Tina. A cop who was Cyrus' tormentor in school, a young and smart waitress, a few cougars, a bitter step dad.,,and they all added up to a quite interesting storyline. The author’s writing is what I may have problems with: It’s a bit impersonal in times.

There was also a lost dog, Frieda, but not "dogs" - as indicated in the title. I think the title is a bit misleading. There were definitely no lost dogs, but just lots of dogs (or cats) that the owners can't live without and love. However, there were quite a few lost humans, not literally, of course.

So, to summarize this review: This was definitely a good books to read, but even with the great plot, the wonderful characters, literary references and a few tear-jerking moments, don't expect this book to wow you. The writing lacks a bit of polish and style. However, it will definitely make you smile, especially if you are a pet owner.




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Beautiful Creatures, not so beautiful book.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book could have been so much more...with such an interesting plot, conflicted yet attractive characters and wonderful world building/setting (South, Civil War vs. present day). I could see why a movie was made based on the above factors: forbidden love, characters torn between two worlds, mysterious families and past, unbelievable power that could used to do good, as well as bad...and a haunted mansion with an attractive owner... I loved how the main character was a love-sick boy, not a girl as in most other YA books.

Unfortunately, there are several factors that did not contribute to a good rating for the series:

1. The story drags on too much without smooth transitions from one part to another. The story could be told in less than two books, 4 are just too many.

2. The characters are not consistent in their actions and beliefs. It's hard to really know and cheer for them, except that they love each other, just like Edward and Bella from Twilight. (Did I mention how much the beginning and plot of this series reminded me of Twilight? By the way, I DID like Twilight, so I'm not one of those anti-paranormal fans) The first person thinking of a new twist is a genius, all others are just copycats.

3. There are so many opportunities to make the 2 main characters likable, yet the author(s) failed; probably neither of them is good in writing from her heart to begin with. Not to mention the collaboration, which may also hinder the smooth flow of the story. It also happened to most of the supporting characters, so I feel sad for the extremely great ones, as Macon and Amma, since they would go down, with the series.

4. Terrible and unpolished writing and grammar, weak descriptives and word choices.

“Just as I lay down, she sat up. I sat up, she flopped back down. Awkward. That was my every move, when it came to her.”

"There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. I never even saw it coming."

"I knew what I was doing. You don't. You think you do, but you don't. She was in my head again, as it she'd always been there."

"Everything around me changed, and it was like I was somewhere else. I was in the garden, but not in the garden..."

I'm a serious note-taking and highlighter (with Kindle) when reading, and the only phrase I highlighted in this book was in the beginning: "There were only two kinds of people in our town. The stupid and the stuck." After reading the first two books of the series (and skimping through the third and the fourth), I seriously think a third person wrote that quote...

5. People can die and be revived as the authors pleased; as well as the characters gaining and losing their power(s). Anything goes. This is the main killer for me. This predicted the forever dragging on of the plot.

I wish some wonderful YA authors, like Roth, Taylor, or Oliver could take this series and rewrite the books so not to waste the characters and the setting.

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Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't normally read memoirs of celebrities or other people who were made known by public media. I feel that a person’s memoir shouldn’t be read as an entertainment, but as something that one could learn a few life lessons from. But, I need to read the newest Scientology Book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief for a group discussion, and figured that this newly published memoir written in a first person account by a previous Scientologist would be a great complement to help my understanding of the organization. I'm so glad I did.

However, as a Chinese American whose parents and Grandparents suffered during the Cultural Revolution and Communist reign in China, it absolutely broke my heart to realize that similar practices could happen right here, right now, in our free and democratic country. Many techniques Jenna and her peers had suffered since young was not news for people who recognize them: Uniform dress code, isolation from the public, chanting/singing, vague and fuzzy ideals/doctrines, lack of privacy, controlled and public punishment, peer evaluation/finger-pointing, controlled diet, forced labor/resulted fatigues, metacommunications, mass gatherings, child/physical/mental abuse, personal and public humiliation, impossible and long work to move up the rank.... I could go on and on and on. It's unbelievable what kind of practice could evolve from the misuse of the First Amendment. Reading this book invoked lots of anger in me that I didn't even realize I have.

Putting my own feelings aside. The book was wonderfully written. Jenna Miscavige is the niece of the leader of Scientology, Dave Miscavige. She was born into a Scientology family. Both sides of her grandparents were devoted Scientologists and her parents were leaders in the Sea Org (where the highest rank and most devoted Scientologists belong) with prominent and important jobs. She was raised a Scientologist since birth and was in a children's camp since a toddler until she voluntarily left the organization in her early 20's after here wedding. Her narrative voice was down to earth, even child-like...which drew me in right from the beginning. She was able to tell the story quite objectively, just like Jeanette Wall's The Glass Castle, with no self-pity or extreme anger. She laid out all the facts exactly as what they were with no up- or downplaying. Ultimately it's up to each reader to draw his/her own conclusion at the end.

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The Good House

The Good House: A Novel by Ann Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was in the middle of several "My family was a toxic dump, yet I turned out amazing" books, and wanted a break from all the negativity and dysfunction. I desperately needed a book with normal and happy people. This book, indeed, was a fast and somewhat happy read, and the people was somewhat normal, as normal as the people in yours, or my neighborhood.

As a realtor of a quaint New England town near the North Shores, Hildy Good has been a top-seller for many years. She's 60, divorced, kids grown, lives comfortably alone and makes good money. People think she's a witch (which is not true), since she knows everything and everyone quite well, not to mention that she's also the descendant of a witch that was hung at the Salem's Witch Trial. She could just read people and houses very well by observing and noticing clues. Her friends and family also think she's an alcoholic (this might be true,) although she constantly denies it since she could function quite normally after a glass or two. She's a fun, humorous, witty, no-nonsense and likable narrator.

This book reminded me how much I enjoy reading character-driven books. The last few that I enjoyed were The Darlings, The World Without You, The Snow Child and The Death of Bees. There are the rich McCallisters, who just moved in. Brian is busy and so much older than his young, lonely and infertile wife, Rebecca. There's Frank, who is the town garbage man and fix-anything guy....whom Hilda had a special relationship with. There's Peter, who's a shrink with an office upstairs whom Hilda and her friends babysat when younger... There are Patch and Cassie with their special-need son, Jake. I wished the author had described their physical appearance a bit more. The image of Hildy in my visual mind is blurry, although I know her quite well now. However, somewhere in the book, we did learn that Frank looks like a gnome, and Rebecca is skinny and elegant. The author used the following poem to describe her:

"I knew a woman, lovely in her bones......(She moved in circles, and those circles moved)....

A quick and easy read, and the unexpected twist at the end was a surprise.

For those who are interested in my "My family was a toxic dump, yet I turned out amazing" books. I'm also in the middle of: "Wild" and "With or Without You." I just finished "The Death of Bees."

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The Death of Bees

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Do not read this books if:

You hate bad language and have a weak stomach.
You love long, windy and beautiful prose.
You are looking for something happy and fluff.
You can't stand cruel acts against others, especially minors.
You need confirmation that life and beautiful, or
you believe that all human are capable of love.

If you belong to one of the above groups, you possibly shouldn't read a book that begins with two girls burying their parents in the back yard, should you? I think you should stop and walk away now. But, if you are an adventurous and open-minded type, and a serious reader who enjoy all sorts of delivering ideas and language, then this books would be a treat for you. Before you dive it, I'll have to alert you, every possible crime and unimaginable cruelty under the sky was committed by someone or to someone in this book.

I think I might have an affinity to child narrators, since I've loved and praised so many (except Room). Yet here's another wonderful book narrated by a child, the 15-year-old Marnie. Marnie has a sister, Nelly, who's 12. Both smart, precocious and understand life much better than you and I do. When both parents died under some unpreventable circumstances, the girls decided to bury them in the back yard, since their parents were not the loving/caring kind, the girls absolutely hated the foster system, and Marnie was not yet 16. They were hoping to hide the secret until Marnie turned 16 and be responsible of both herself and her sister, which she has been doing anyway.

The book is narrated by three voices: Marnie, Nelly and Lennie. Lennie is an older gay man who took the girls under his wings, hoping for some kind of redemption for a mistake he committed a while ago. Lennie's parts were written as if he was talking to his partner, whom he lost a while ago. Marnie's narratives were brutal, down-to-the-point, and lack of polish with a bit of humor. It took me a while to get used to, but then I fell for her hard and couldn't get her out of my mind. She was practically a baby but had to endure so much but acting tough, since there was no one to look after her.

"Our phone died. Just like that. We can't call the local constabulary and we can't call an ambulance. Have you ever heard of such a thing? A calamity and no mistake."

"I just don't get why anyone would want to ink their name or their secrets on the surface of their skin, why can't they just keep them inside like I do?....I'm never getting a tattoo. My secrets are etched safely on the inside and I intend to keep them there."

The book was a page-turner for me. I think the author did quite a good job in keeping the plot interesting and engaging. The characters were great. Each of them was deep and etched vividly in my mind no matter how unimportant they were in the story. I deliberately slowed down reading near the end just to enjoy Marnie and Nelly's voices a bit more. This author was successful in building a great plot as well as developing his characters, which I've only seen in a few authors. The ending was also quite satisfactory.



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Just One Day YA Review

Just One Day by Gayle Forman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Can one fall in love in just one day? When we were young, we believed we could...so did Allyson in this book.

"We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day."

Allyson was young, 18, a goody-two-shoes who followed her parents' every advice and was on her road to become a pre-med student. A trip to Europe, or more specifically, a day in Paris, changed everything...Did she see the truth on that day, or a big fat lie?

Allyson was a normal and average American girl who was not particular pretty nor witty. She was awkward in social situations, even, but she was a good thinker, and she did a lot of self-introspection throughout the course of the story. She made stupid mistakes and quick decisions that caused the Mom in me to wince with horror. She made friends, but also lost them. It was heartbreaking to observe Allyson to come of age in the hard way through every error and consequences of her decisions. This story begins when she made a decision to visit Paris for a day with a guy she barely knows, while she was in Europe for her high school graduation trip. The day changed everything in her life.

My bookish friend, Kathleen...once mentioned that she could not resist any YA novels that quote Shakespeare or mention his works. This book will definitely attract her attention. The Dutch boy in the book, Willem, and Allyson met when he was performing as Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's plays and works are subsequently mentioned in the second half of the book, and more intensively. They also sparked my interest in a few plays and I plan to read the original works a bit later. Part of the story also took place in Europe, yet the author described the places quite accurately, (view spoiler)[especially in the second trip. (hide spoiler)] For those of you who has never read Shakespeare, or has never been to Europe, you'll definitely add a few more things to your bucket list after reading this book.

This is another wonderful book from Gayle Forman, the author of two other books: If I Stay and Where She Went. Just like her the format of her previous two books, Just One Day is written in the girl's perspective, and the upcoming sequel will be in the boy's voice.

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