I’m gonna start with this right now. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LOVE DOGS. That’s as far as I’ll go for spoilers in this paragraph. The book was very explicit in all sex scenes and referenced the difference between the pure love of a dog and the destructive love of humans a lot. I thought the characters were mostly toxic and I can’t say that I enjoyed the plot. However, Melissa Broder’s prose is beautiful and I’ll give her that much.

Spoilers ahead.

As far as events that were foreshadowed very early on in the book: the death of Dominic. I think I’ll focus more on this than anything else in my response because it really really disturbed me. I am a dog lover, so I’m pretty sure I could’ve gone my whole life without reading about what Lucy did to Dominic. First, she loved him and his pure affection. It was often referenced how Dominic’s love was pure and innocent. Lucy’s was the exact opposite. Then, she moved from loving spending time with him to neglecting him (only barely, which is forgivable at this point in the novel) for one-night stands. Then, after she gets hung up on Theo, she begins feeding the dog tranquilizers. That’s not the worst part, though. She doubles, triples, and even quadruples the dose for that poor dog and ends up making him overdose. So, yes, the ending affected me a lot. I could’ve cared less at that point whether she went with Theo to the ocean (or drowned?) and lived happily ever after. As far as if the occurrence of these events made them tragic, I think it was knowing the whole time from the foreshadowing that Dominic was going to die and still having to read about it happening. 

Okay, rant over (for the most part). As a character, I think Lucy was as toxic as it gets, and that was definitely done on purpose. I’m sure Melissa Broder knows that one of the most unforgiveable things an artist can do in their work is kill the dog, so I know she did it to give greater meaning to Lucy’s character. However, it is still unforgiveable. I don’t think that Lucy would’ve realized the error of her ways without Dominic dying, though, because she was so consumed in her selfish ways. I found this book to be more about toxicity than love (or self love), and the ultimate toxicity that a person can reach is legit killing the dog. As far as the allusion to Lucy being pregnant at the end, I’m mildly curious to know how she would be able to raise a child let alone a fish-child. 

All of this to say that I really didn’t think the writing was bad. I think Melissa Broder is great at her descriptions and her imagery. Also, it shows how good of a writer Broder is that she can make me feel so strongly about a book. However, the story was not for me at all. I didn’t like the plot, the characters and lack of character developments in them, but I liked the dog. And here we are. 

Source: Audiobook from Audible