The Art of Racing in the Rain

Book : The Art of Racing in the Rain
Author : Garth Stein
Pages : 338

 

A dog you will fall in love with, a dog more human than human now-a-days.

Story

The story is about a dog named Enzo, and his feelings of being happy, sad, jealous, protective and every a human can feel.
Enzo was adopted by Denny from a barn when he was still a pup only. Denny, the race driver talked to Enzo all about race and race cars, and how to drive in the race. They used to watch race video’s together and everything until, Denny fell in love with Eve.

Will there be difference in relationship between Enzo and Denny ?
What’s special about Racing in the rain?

Writing

This is my first Book, that is from a dog POV, and I loved it mostly due to the audio book I choose in between ebook reading. The audio book was by Christopher Evan Welch, and I loved how the speaker had done voice modulation for Enzo, Denny, Eve or even little Zoe.

Let’s start with what I loved, I loved that Enzo could feel as many human emotions as possible. He wasn’t able to tell them, but in a way he did use his barks for that.
Enzo’s love for Denny was unconditional, and his jealously came in parts when Denny found Eve

“We were both satellites orbiting Denny’s sun, struggling for gravitational supremacy”

Dog’s are amazing creature, most loved one, and one who can really be a best friend. But Enzo’s obsession of “being incarnated as a man”, did set me off sometimes. At time I wanted to hug Enzo and tell him, HUMAN’s aren’t worth you Enzo. They are just not. Be a dog instead, please….

I somehow loved Denny, he is a perfect gentleman, love his dog, loves his wife, manages time between family and his job. The only thing that I didn’t like in the character was how one dimensional he was shown like Even in the desperate needs of breaking, he doesn’t break and be positive.

The story looked like a checklist of lots of cliche’s, a good dog, someone having fatal disease, controlling in laws and more cliches. And it looked so predictable at those times.

There were times, when I felt the “racing” was put just in to defend the title. But that one scene of “faster, faster” was incredibly well written. (you need to read the book to know what I mean)

Words that touched

People and their rituals. They cling to things so hard sometimes.

I admire the female sex. The life makers. It must be amazing to have a body that can carry an entire creature inside.

She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear.

I wanted to judge the world around me, not merely be a supportive friend

The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague

Final Note :

If you love dogs, and want to love them MORE. Read it, better if you listen it because narration by Christopher really helped me in finishing this book with a human touch.

Cover: 4/5(new motion picture cover)
Title: 2.5/5
Blurb: 3/5
Theme: 5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Characters: 5/5 (only for Enzo)
Overall: 4/5

*-*-*-*-*-*-*Book Challenges*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Read this book, as part of
>> Pop Sugar Challenge Prompt 1 : A book becoming a movie in 2019
>> Underrated Reads Book Club : BOTM Jul-Aug
>> Write Tribe Reading Challenge Prompt 12 : A book with an animal in the title/cover

The Broken Amoretti

Book : The Broken Amoretti
Author : Sudipto Das Aparajita Dutta
Pages : 296
Price : 380/-

In love nothing is right or wrong

Story

The novel is divided into two parts, WITH and WITHOUT. Both in reference to ? (you need to read it to know that 😉 )

WITH start’s with Parush, one of the protagnist (yes, ‘one of the’ because there are MANY) opens a diary. A Diary he hasn’t seen since long, a dairy that has a secret, world doesn’t know , a dairy that will unravel what LOVE is all about, a dairy that belongs to Parush’s ex love Bitasta’s mother, Panchali.

Saoli leaving her husband comes to India, to teach poetry at IIT KGP and is very much interested in subject related to Queer Theory. She meets Parushni who is also submitting her paper same day on Lesbianism.

How Saoli, get’s to know Parush and under what conditions?

Writing

This is my second read by author Sudipto Das, and I quite liked his The Aryabhatta Clan (the book had cryptic messages and a whole lot of thrill to decipher it).
The Blurb of The Broken Amoretti, gave me the same vibes, there will be a cryptic message and story will unravel it. However, I was disappointed in that a bit. I can’t review the story as whole, so I will divide it in two parts.

The Relevant :
I loved how the author started the setting up of characters, and their known/unknown love for a place called ‘prembajar’. There were references to great poets, and their poetries. The poetries were explained, giving the background of meter and everything. Which was new to me, and I liked it. This simply showed the research author did for getting these parts in the novel.

I loved how the author tried to fictionalize WHO was Panchali or stories about characters from Greek Mythology Artemis, Callisto and some more..

The story’s main aim was writing about how love has no boundaries and no gender, in a way that it was convincing. This was mainly done giving background’s of mythologies and many poetries.
But when I think back after completing it, it was just brushed up on the story. Later the story becomes something else, which makes me sad.

I loved the cover, it does have a deep meaning once you complete reading it.
The Random :
There were so many characters, each girl falling in love with Parush at some point. Why THOUGH? This was too cliche for me, and I didn’t like it. The love scene’s were written very shabby.

The story unraveled very soon, and felt like being dragged over many pages. The novel started with a mystery poem, went to the Love story of Parush and Batista, and then went straight out of context to gaming and the politics and what not. I felt trapped, and it was hard to follow why this was happening. And strangest of all, why did all the characters just end up at one place 😐 (too cliche again)

Final Note :

If the novel had been divided into three part’s instead of capturing too many good idea’s into one. I would have loved it, but the main motive of the novel felt lost in the first half the book. And came back in the last few pages back.

You can surely enjoy the book, if you are okay with subplots, and some cliches.
Poetry lovers will enjoy the first half of the book, because it is really well written. Gaming and technology enthusiast will love the second half of the book, because the story separately is very well written.

Cover: 4/5
Title: 3/5
Blurb: 2/5
Theme: 3/5
Story: 2/5
Characters: 1.5/5
Overall: 2.5/5

*-*-*-*-*-*-*Book Challenges*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Read this book, as part of
>> #bnbreadathon – Jul-Aug