A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life

by Steven Kotler

• ISBN10: 1608190021
• ISBN13: 9781608190027
• Publish Date: 5 October 2010 (first published 3 October 2010)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 27 July 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Bloomsbury USA
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 307
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

As with the other ARCs I have reviewed please keep in mind that the page count and a few details I may mention may or may not be the same as the actual text. Now on to the review. I personally did not enjoy this book the way I had hoped. The author does have a talent for writing and his style is fluid, precise, and quick paced. However, I can't stand when people interrupt stories...especially if it's their own story. There were a lot of very interesting, cute, sad, and touching stories about the dogs that he and his wife fostered, but just as a story is starting and you're getting interested -pause- and the philosophy side story or research starts. After about a page or so of that you finally get back to the story but it's just not the same now that you are bogged down with a bunch of knowledge about a wide assortment of things. I suppose to be fair this book isn't purely about the dogs, it's about the lifestyle and how he grew into it. So the fact that he is thinking about how he and the dogs interact and get to know each other is a good thing, I just would have preferred if the information would have come before the actual story or after, or if being in the middle is the only perhaps if it was shorter in length. That was my major dislike. There were a few issues I had with the author and that was just a personality clash I suppose. There are a few editorial mistakes like for example the author's wife is named Joy, but there are a few times that he calls her Lila. It's not terrible but it's enough to make you backtrack to see who exactly he's talking about.Also I never want to go to Chimayo, New Mexico ever...it sounds terrible. The scenery sounds beautiful but the community sounds absolutely terrible. It may not be that way now but I'm definitely not going to put it on "to travel" list.

I personally love the message that this gives though. Dog rescue is hard work and by no means pretty, but the rewards come in so many different ways. This book proves that there is a lot we can learn from animals, and there are somethings we may never understand. I can't say I recommend this because it was a bit of a tedious read but if you really enjoy books about animals and/or animal rescuing I'm sure you would enjoy this a lot.

In compliance with FTC guidelines, I won this book through the First-reads program on Goodreads