Name: The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances
ISBN: 9780544236158

Ellen Cooney

A woman with little experience with animals signs up to be a volunteer trainer at The Sanctuary, a home for strays and unwanted dogs, and learns more than she bargained for about forgiveness, rehabilitation and being rescued. 50,000 first printing.

The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances

Colleen

2 Stars

Well, the premise sounded interesting. But The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances did not capture my interest at all. The writing style was weird and not the least bit engaging. The characters felt hollow. There was hardly any plot. And the whole seemed to be hinged on the reader feeling an emotional connection which sadly I did not.

The narrative switched between 1st person (Evie) and 3rd person (Mrs. Auberchon). Mrs. Auberchon's sections seemed pretty pointless. There was not much to her character other than her unexplained bonding with Evie. And Evie, whose narrative made up most of the book, was not an engaging character. She was probably the most passive narrative I have ever read. She really only interacts with Mrs. Auberchon and one other character. All interactions with other characters as well as the majority of the dialogue and plot points happen "off screen" as it were. Nearly all events and conversations were relayed after the fact, so I felt completely removed and detached from the story. For example:

"So I'm saying to Margaret, sort of, about the rigidity, thanks for the tip. And I'm saying to the dogs, I won't break you. I mean, I won't make you worse than how much you're already broken."
And that is how almost the entire book went. (Those quotations were just there to show the section I pulled from the book. The book itself uses almost no quotation marks which was definitely irritating.) It was not the typical narrative or stream of consciousness. It was disjointed, unemotional, and off-putting. Evie processed things by turning everything into lists (almost exclusively about dog care) which made her narrative extremely disjointed and had lots of info dumps. I had no idea what was going on half the time and honestly did not care the rest of the time. The story was severely lacking in plot. The story randomly jumped to explanations of the past, but not in an engaging way. And since the characters felt so flat, none of it seemed to matter.

The book ended up coming across more like a thinly veiled, sanctimonious lecture about dog care. It was more soapbox than novel. After repeatedly comparing leash training to fascism, I really could not take this book seriously. The character became increasingly radical as the story progressed until they seemed one step away from ecoterrorists. It was also weird how much Evie anthropomorphized the dogs but in such a way that the dogs were never made into characters. It was most just Evie rambling about her interpretation of the dogs personalities. 

Maybe and extreme animal lover (or animal extremist) might enjoy this book, but it completely lacked the emotional impact that I was expecting. As I mentioned, it was one most passive narratives I can recall reading and was completely disappointing. 


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 1 Star
Characters and Character Development: 1 Star
Plot Structure and Development: 2 Stars
Level of Captivation: 2 Stars
Originality: 2 Stars

The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances

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