The Art of Racing in the Rain

dnf at 67%
noncon
stupid narration and choices that made no sense
too repetitive with racing analogies
death by cancer
graphic violence against a dog
weird descriptions of naked women

this man’s life was literally ruined by something he didn’t do and was the victim. i can’t read this anymore

So good!! I cried at the end, it was so good! The story of Denny and the trials he faces are heart-wrenching in and of themselves, but to have it told from the perspective of his faithful, near-human dog gives the story an enchanting twist. It's just so, so good!

I read this book in 2015 and I still remember my shock when discovering the POV was coming from a dog. It went on to become one of the most touching books I've ever read.

The narrator is the dog, Enzo.
Sounded a little cheesy to me.
It has a good rating average rating, though, and it was available at my library's e-library. I thought I'd try to read a few chapters. A few turned into 10, then 20, then after a day and a half and about 8 crying jags- done.

Enzo is a superb narrator. The tale is tells is that of his life with his master, Denny. He speaks about racing (car racing) a lot, which I sometimes found myself wanting to skim when it was being used as metaphors for what was going on more often than not. But then, I'm just not into racing the day Enzo and Denny are. I was not upset by a lack of character development as some other readers were. I felt like Enzo and Denny were developed very well and that the reason for this is because this is through Enzo's eyes, and he is most often around Denny. The descriptions of the characters seemed to be contingent upon how much time Enzo spent with them. Makes sense to me.

It was a sweet little book, and while reading it, I kept wondering if I would rate it three stars or four. By the end, I was at five. I found myself recounting the events to my boyfriend (to the dismay of my glazed over eyed audience) and trying to force a non-reader to really care about the heartbreaking events Denny goes through. This is a great book. It wasn't like anything else I've read. I won't seek out other books with animal narrators because of it, but only because I'm afraid it just wouldn't work out as well as this one did.

I jut finished listening to this book and I can barely see through my tears and my nose is running and I'm a mess. I'm a sucker for a good dog story and this is a great one! Garth Stein wrote an incredible character in Enzo - what a great dog, so deep, just what I see when I look at some of my dogs - but not all of them.
Dog person or not - it's a great story about a family - told by the dog. LOVED IT.

The one criticism I have about the audiobook version I listened to had so dramatic music every so often which I found to be weird and out of place with this production. But the narrator, Christopher Evan Welch was really good.