Can you love and book and hate it at the same time? My answer is yes. That book is Garth Stein's the Art of Racing in the Rain.
The story is told from the point of view of a dog, which is fabulous and ingenious, but I always find that whenever a story revolves around animals, it is always sad. And this is no exception. I am not ruining anything for you, as we are told in the summary that the dog is at the end of his life and he is reflecting back on his years.
I spent the entire first chapter balling, hating the author, for his description of Enzo the dog at the end of his days was exactly, to a tee, describing my last days with Mack. And it didn't help matters that the dog on the cover of the book is the spitting image of Mack.
We put Mack down ten years ago this month, and I have had some sad memories since then, but nothing like this. I felt such anger toward the book, for making me feel this way, for dredging up those very real and distinct memories; but it was such a good book I had to keep reading. I finished it in two days: it was that good and I just needed to get through it.
Enzo's master is a amateur race car driver. I grew up watching a lot of Formula 1 and Indy, so I really enjoyed that aspect of the book and enjoyed seeing names of drivers that I grew up watching. And I still distinctly remember the day Ayrton Senna died.
Books don't usually have this strong an effect on me; but I usually avoid books with animals for this very reason.
