Book Review : "Good Boy"

Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is not your father's animal book. Hey, I've read "A Dog's Purpose" and "Dewey, the Small Town Library Cat" and adored them, they're fantastic. I'm just saying that if you pick up Jenny Boylan's "Good Boy" expecting it to be the usual neatly divided seven chapters about seven heart-stealing dogs, you won't get what you're expecting. Oh yes, there ARE seven dogs, and they have all the wiles and charms that almost all dogs possess. But this book is about more than that.

If you've read any of Boylan's memoirs, such as "She's Not There", then you know that she lived half her life as James Boylan, before becoming--or should I say, expressing--Jennifer. This book is as much about that journey as it is about the dogs. At every step of the way, dogs were there --as they have been in my own life--to make the whole experience of life more joyful, deeper, sometimes sadder when the time comes to say goodbye. I would go so far as to say that this book is about the most important things that make us human--a subject dogs seem to know an awful lot about.

Boylan is honest in these stories, sometimes talking about things that burn in the remembering of them. Some are small, like the day in childhood when young James breaks all the crayons in a girl classmate's desk, scarcely knowing, himself, why he does it. Other moments are larger, but the author doesn't shy away from any of them. As I read the book, I found that the honesty about the moments she is not proud of made the shining moments more vivid as well. It's not easy to tell it like it is (or was) but it certainly makes for a richer telling.

The book is also very funny! I laughed hard, especially in her descriptions of Matt the Mutt, a dog entirely untroubled with restraint or household rules. Boylan gives a dog's eye view of Matt's full speed ahead take on life. My son has a knack for voicing what my dog would say, if he could speak Human, and Jennifer Boylan has that same knack.

In the end, this is a book about love, family, taking care of each other, and how our lives build one thing upon the next. It's a book with heart. Very much recommended.

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