Dog Person by Camille Pagán

Dog Person by Camille Pagán
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Delacorte Press via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Harold may be an aging mutt—but Amelia May, the romance novelist who adopted him, taught him a thing or two about the human heart before she died. And she left Harold with a final task: to help her partner, Miguel, find love again.

Trouble is, the grief-ridden recluse rarely goes out, not even to the bookstore he and Amelia owned together. Now it’s in danger of going under, and when a renowned author doesn’t show up for his event, it pushes the store’s already precarious finances into the red. In a final attempt to save the bookstore, Miguel and Harold set out to find the no-show and insist he fulfill his obligation. But instead they’re greeted by Fiona, his sunny yet secretive sister.

Fiona is intent on protecting her brother’s privacy—and to Harold’s horror, she doesn’t like dogs. But her precocious eleven-year-old daughter, who’s also named Amelia, immediately befriends Harold . . . and he can’t help but wonder if his Amelia was right when she said there are no coincidences in life.

Harold is quickly running out of time to accomplish his mission, but if he can just convince his infuriatingly stubborn person to let Fiona in, he’s certain Miguel will find something far more important than a missing author: his own happy ending.
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I am someone who has loved many dogs in my life. And I have always been a person who talks to her dogs and is pretty sure that I can "hear" them talking back to me. Therefore, reading Harold's story in his voice was a really fun way to experience this story for me. I immediately fell in love with him and his people when I found myself awake early one morning (thanks to one of those dogs I was talking about) and decided to stay in bed for a bit and read my new book.

On top of our unconventional narrator, another thing to love about this book for me was that it had as one of its central settings a bookstore. I love books about bookstores, and this one was no exception. Miguel's devotion to Amelia's legacy leads him and Harold on an adventure as they attempt to save this legacy from financial ruin.

If you don't want to cry, this might not be the book for you, but if you are looking for an emotional exploration of grief and the healing power of love between a man and his dog, as well as the hope that comes from learning to love again, definitely pick it up. There also is a strong theme of found family throughout, and anyone who has read my reviews before knows that is a sure way to get me hooked. By the end of the day, I had finished the book and had been reminded why I have always been and would always be a Dog Person.

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