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“This is in New Fiction at Tunxis Library, not Hot Reads. Reviewed by Paul McMahon
Jimmy is a dog. Gil has brought up Jimmy since he was a puppy. They are very close.
One day Gil is working on the property and he notices a large collection of dogs that seem to be concentrating on Jimmy like he is a speaker or teacher. That’s unusual. What is more unusual is that Jimmy is telling the collection of dogs how to manipulate humans and get their way. What is unusual is that Gil understands every word that Jimmy is saying.
Jimmy says, “If you want to get your way you have to look mournful by dropping your nose and raising your eyes.”
If you see the cover of the book you see a perfect picture of it. If you have a dog, you will see it in person. The dog on the cover is not Jimmy who is a big black mongrel.
Gil and Jimmy begin to communicate on how dogs feel about humans. There are lots of insights. Gil can understand all of the dogs at the class Jimmy is teaching on how to manipulate humans. Gil takes rescue dogs and presently has four. Jimmy is not a rescue dog. Jimmy thinks he is Gil’s son. When Gil explains that that is impossible Jimmy is devastated. He insists on seeing his birth mother.
There are a lot of adventures between that request and meeting Jimmy’s family who live with Gil’s ex-wife and her husband. She is an 11 on a scale of one to 10 and with the help of a good lawyer cleaned Gil out.
Gil puts Jimmy on FaceBook and begins a blog based on what Jimmy has to say about dogs and people. Jimmy soon has a couple of hundred friends. There are lots of people who are convinced that they can communicate with their animals. They cannot. They tell Gil that their widdle doggy loves vegan food. The doggy tells Gil that he is sick of the baby talk and that poop tastes better than the vegan food.
There are a lot of humorous stories including a convention of people who channel their pets and speak lowcat to their kitties. The story is based in LA.
It is a fun book. Gil gets in a lot of trouble by having an affair with his ex-wife. A couple of estates are burned by wild fires.
Overall a fun book that packs a lot of emotion into the relations between humans and animals.”
