Marley & Me by John Grogan
April 29th, 2006 Posted in GeneralI saw the cover and thought… that’s a cute dog. The saying goes that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, so I said that I couldn’t buy it just because it had a cute dog on the cover.
Then Jessica sent me an article about the book. I don’t remember much about that article, but I do know that I was very interested in reading this one after I did.
In the beginning, I was reading and yelling in my head…. that’s US! They were just like us in that they had to have a dog when they weren’t ready yet for kids. They had no idea what they were getting into with this dog. And I just kept seeing that!
In my second session of reading it, Jessica walked in and caught that I had been crying. And I wasn’t even at the end yet!
So as I kept going, I saw so much of Molly in every story that he had about Marley. I was good to read that our dog is not totally unique in her annoying habits (and yes, lovable ways).
As you continue to read though, you eventually hit the point at which Marley starts to age. Then it gets painful…. really painful. In reading these parts, I couldn’t help but think of Vincent, our blind cocker spaniel, and Max, my parents big dog who unfortunately has not aged well in his joints. With both of these guys in mind, I was consistently holding back the tears as I made it to the end.
I would recommend this book because it is well written and it really got to me. John Grogan is a former columnist and he has maintained that quick-witted writing style you’re more used to seeing when you read the editorials in the Sunday paper (think Lee Roop for the locals). It was not an easy book to read, but it was good.
