Book Review: A Dog's Purpose

It's no secret that I love my dog. (Check out all of the posts tagged with "Shelby Love. There are a lot of them.) And as such I have started to love reading any kind of book about dogs. (See here. And here.) So on my most recent trip to the library, I checked out an audio book with a dog on the cover: A Dog's Journey, by W. Bruce Cameron. (Of course that drew me in.) I excitedly put it in my CD player only to find out that it was a sequel to another book. Disappointing. Fast forward to the next week, and my friend Kaitlyn gave me this book for my birthday: A Dog's Purpose, which as luck would have it was the book I needed to read before I could listen to my audio book. And read it I did.

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I love many things about this book. For starters, it's told from a dog's perspective, and many of the things that the dog says over the course of its many lives are all things I have thought Shelby must have said at some point. I think that considering he is a person, W. Bruce Cameron does a fantastic job of articuluating what I think dogs think. This book also shows real life over the course of time through the perspective of a dog, making observations about the people the dog interacts with that seem so simple yet so accurate.

And throughout the dogs different lives, we see the different purposes dogs have and the lives they live. Some lives show the good, such as life as a rescue dog and a life loving and protecting a child. Others show the not-so-good, such as the dog being left in a hot car, the dog's first life at what seems to be some kind of puppy mill, and people trying to hurt the dog for whatever reason. But most importantly we see this dog's purpose, and the efforts he makes to find "his boy," overall showing the unconditional love and loyalty only a pet can provide.

I have loved several dogs over the course of my life, and this book made me think of all of them and how a dog can live on even after it has left us.