Monday, November 26, 2018

Dog

Dog by Michelle Herman   Hardcover: 188 pages

Dog is a novella about a cynical, reclusive poetry professor and her transformative experience adopting a puppy. Though she’s resistant to change at first, the protagonist finds that the emotional space she creates for Phil, the dog, opens things up everywhere: she begins reconsidering the meaning of “goodness” in her life, and she contemplates her past, present, and future with more kindness than she’d ever been able to muster. I enjoyed the changing tone of the professor’s musings as she grew more and more attached to the dog, and appreciated the depictions of her very different academic and domestic selves – a divide everyone can relate to on some level.  Ultimately a story about companionship and possibility, I recommend it if you want a rare feel-good but believable, engaging short book – it didn’t take much time to read, but the story is still hanging around pleasantly in my mind.

 - Aleta L.

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