Lives of the Monster Dogs
by Kirsten Bakis

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Book Reviews of Lives of the Monster Dogs

Book Review: (What's wrong with people?) A beautiful novel.
Summary: 5 Stars

It seems to me that many of the criticisms of "Lives of the Monster Dogs" come from people with rather literal-minded requirements of a novel. I can't help but wonder why they even bothered to read a book that from the first page is staggeringly imaginative and original. This novel creates its own unique world and demands to be taken on its own terms. People who are upset to find elements of the book's plot or science implausible, for example, should probably be reading something else. (Computer manuals, perhaps.)

Quite a few other readers seem to have been disappointed (and often--bizarrely enough--angered), because they didn't feel the novel lived up to what they consider its "hype." I think they may have confused "hype" and good reviews. There's a potential problem whenever you read too many rave reviews of a book (and "Lives of the Monster Dogs" got plenty of them): Your expectations may be raised impossibly high (consciously or unconsciously); and you may simply learn too many details of the book in advance--a lethal combination. The truth is that, as far as I could tell, this book was hardly promoted (or "hyped") at all. (I kept hoping Ms. Bakis would give a public reading in San Francisco, but when I called her publisher I was told that she didn't like being in the spotlight and probably wouldn't do a reading tour--"She thinks the book should stand or fall by itself" were, I'm pretty sure, the exact words the man I spoke to used.) "Lives of the Monster Dogs" seems to have succeeded entirely on the basis of ecstatic reviews and word-of-mouth. Which it completely deserves.

Summary of Lives of the Monster Dogs

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