Review: A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher

Orbit
Publication: April 23rd, 2019

Hardcover. 388 pages.

About A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World:

"My name's Griz. My childhood wasn't like yours. 

I've never had friends, and in my whole life I've not met enough people to play a game of football. My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, but we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other, and our dogs. 

Then the thief came. 

There may be no law left except what you make of it. But if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you.

 Because if we aren't loyal to the things we love, what's the point?."

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World is a remarkable, heartbreaking, and almost meditative journey for both the reader and the main character in this book.

To be completely frank, I was initially rather hesitant to read this book in the first place because I knew that a dog would be a prominent character and I also knew that it was going to be stolen. This doesn't bode well for my inability to handle any book or movie in which a dog is harmed or placed in harm's way, but I started seeing a ton of glowing early reviews and decided I needed to read it anyway...and it's absolutely worth it. I can't tell you anything about the fate of said dog, but I can tell you that this book is worth your time and emotions because of it's incredible and touching nature. 

The author specifically requests at the beginning of the book that readers refrain from sharing spoilers of the book, and though I generally keep all of my reviews spoilers free, I will take extra care in this review to keep things rather general and not too detailed when it comes to plot points and characters. This actually works well for me because this book is a journey that every reader needs to experience by themselves. You don't need to read a huge review of this book before reading it--it speaks for itself. That being said, I'm still sharing my thoughts!

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World is told from Griz's POV in a journal format. Griz sets up his journal as if he's writing to a specific person that we don't know, but he's really just writing it so as to keep his story somewhere. It's the end of the world, so the amount of people still available to talk to or share things with is, well, rather slim. Because of the journal setup, the writing style is a very readable conversation-style that pretty much made me fly through this book. However, there were a few areas where Griz would explain certain things he was doing, such as in relation to how he maneuvered his boat or built something, that did admittedly drag a little, but for me this really just fit the entire narrative style of Griz sharing his entire journey--not just the exciting bits. 

I loved Griz's honest and blunt nature as he slowly discovers the world and the types of people that once inhabited it. Accompanying Griz on his journey into a world he's never experienced was one of the most wonderful parts of this book, as he discovers and learns about all the different things people did in the "Before," including amusement parks and various buildings, as well as contemplating things such as the existence of zoos and what happened to the animals. Griz is also a huge book lover, which of course spoke to me at many times throughout the book, and I'm positive that other book lovers will identify with Griz as well. And, of course, if you love dogs as much as Griz (or myself), then you'll identify with the amount and type of love that he has for his dog and why he will literally travel the world just to try to find it. Because, as Griz says, "if we aren't loyal to the things we love, what's the point?"

As mentioned, I won't go into specifics in regards to individual characters, but suffice to say that each character payed some form of a crucial role in this book in one way or another. Whether it was because a character physically interacted with Griz and affected his journey or simply impacted Griz's thoughts or actions in some way, the development of role of each character was truly outstanding.

This book also plays with a lot of themes that have left me thinking about them a lot. The simplest of them all seems to be simply to be kind to others and not resort unnecessarily to hate, anger, or violence. There's also the bond between man and dog, something that I think many readers can easily relate to. There are also a lot of small almost throwaway comments that Griz makes at various points in the book that are actually very poignant and make you stop and think, something that really made me continue to fall in love with this book. This book is filled to the brim with discover, humor, strong emotional moments, joy, anger, and motivation to be a person you can respect. 

Overall, I've given A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World 4.5 stars! 

*I received a copy of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World in exchange for an honest review. This has no effect on my rating of the novel.*

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