A Simply Enchanted Life

The Dog That Talked to God by Jim Kraus

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Another super cute cover in this collection of books by Jim Kraus! I will admit—I’m not much of a dog person nor am I much of a fan of first person perspective so I’m not too shocked that I didn’t enjoy it as much as “The Cat That God Sent” This book was an “okay” read but I thought it had a lot of room for improvement and was pretty unrealistic. I really did have high hopes for this story but I was a bit disappointed.

Mary Fassler has lost her husband and her son in a tragic accident. In an attempt to move on with her life she adopts a dog from a breeder (meh that was the first thing that sort of irked me— I prefer bred dogs to be for service animals. Why not take in strays from the Humane Society?)

She is a writer and editor and honestly? I think that was the second thing that bothered me about this story—she used big words and would gloat about it as the story was written in first person. I found her to be obnoxious and like she thought she was so much better than her friends because she could use words they didn’t know. I also thought she “dumbed down” and almost poked fun of how easy it was for her to become a writer of “Amish fiction” that she admitted to knowing nothing about. It came off as if it was a dig at the genre even if it was unintentional.

As the story progresses her dog begins to speak to her. This is another big different between “The Cat that God Sent” and this book—I found it entirely difficult to believe that a dog was speaking to an adult woman when the story isn’t really supposed to be science fiction or fantasy. I wanted to speak right back to the book character and say “I think you need to up your medication.” It was just entirely too hard to believe.

Mary moves to the North Carolina Coast and tries to piece her life together—all at the insistence of the dog (again—a little cuckoo?) and it honestly just seems as if from the minute she got there all she could think about was finding a new man. So on top of obnoxious you have a woman who is desperate—great.

I wanted to like this book because I really did enjoy “The Cat that God Sent” but I simply couldn’t get into this story. I even struggled knowing what to rate the book but I decided it could have been worse so I went with a 2-star rating. I think the first book I read by this author had a lot of potential and the same type of voice should have been used for this book as well and it would have been much improved.
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Jim Kraus grew up in Western Pennsylvania and has spent the last twenty years as a vice president of a major Christian publishing house. He has written more than twenty books and novels, including the best-selling The Dog That Talked to God. He and his family live outside of Chicago with a sweet miniature Schnauzer and an ill-tempered Siberian cat named (of course) Petey. www.jimkraus.com
I received this book free from the publisher through a fantastic program called Litfuse Publicity. I was not required to write a positive review. The thoughts and opinions I have expressed are my own. To view other reviews and learn more about this tour please visit the Litfuse group by clicking here