The Art of Racing in the Rain

This post first published February 11, 2014.

Author: Garth Stein
First Published: January 2008
Publisher: Harper
321 pages (paperback)
 
Long time no update… final year of my nursing program, it’s been very busy! But now that things are wrapping up, I’m finally finding some more time to read books.

So, I got a dog pretty recently, about 5 months ago, which is like, one of the best things to ever happen to me. I’m completely in love with my dog in every way. As a result, I found my taste in books have now shifted to books that include dogs … Which is how I found this book, The Art of Racing in the Rain. I saw a dog on the cover and bought it, that was pretty much it. Easily persuaded.

This book is narrated by a dog named Enzo, who is now near the end of his dog days and reflects back on his life with his humans. Enzo believes that when dogs die, they become reincarnated as people; thus, he thinks back to how his humans have lived over the years and reflects on human nature. He lives with his primary owner, Denny, an aspiring racecar driver; Denny’s wife Eve, who Enzo had a bit of an ambiguous relationship with; and their daughter Zoe, a spirited young girl who Enzo has vowed to protect.

I really enjoyed this book. I love dogs, so it was funny reading some of the scenes with Enzo doing doggy things but trying to eloquently explain why he did (such as why he decided to take a massive diarrhea dump on the porch even though he knew the humans wouldn’t like it, or why he tore up Zoe’s stuffed animal). Enzo has a philosopher-like approach to life and it was interesting to read about everything from his perspective, knowing that he is, in fact, a dog. This book is pretty “chill” and “relaxing” if that makes any sense at all. I was eagerly turning pages, wanting to know what happens next, but this book is by no means some sort of action or mystery page turner. It’s the kind of book you can lazily read while sipping some tea on a rainy day … or a sunny day too, of course, haha. And while you lazily read this book, you wonder along with Enzo, why humans do the things they do to one another.

As usual, not everyone is going to like this book (well, you can’t expect everyone to like a book).  It is not a plot oriented book, definitely more geared towards characters, and I know for some people, they aren’t interested in introspective, self-discovering characters as the main point of the story. And to be honest, the only character that is really fleshed out in my opinion is Enzo, and perhaps Denny. Everyone else was kind of secondary and one-dimensional. But that was okay to me because Enzo was closest with Denny and interacted the most with Denny, so it made sense to me.

Maybe because of the fact that I have now joined the ranks of dog owning people, the ending particularly got me feeling all emotional. It seems to happen with all dog books … the dog eventually dies (this is not a spoiler in my opinion because you know about this in the first couple pages of this book). Ugh, it just gets me thinking about my own dog’s lifespan, which I do not want to because she’s only 7 months old right now! But anyway, the ending got me. It was cheesy, I admit. Very cheesy. But I loved it all the same.

My Rating: 3.5/5