Disclaimer! I pulled this review over directly from Goodreads without editing is. So any references I make to other people's reviews are all reviews from Goodreads.com.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really nice book!

It looks longer than it feels- reading it was a breeze. Enzo is funny and insightful, and I think Garth Stein did a great job striking a balance between his doggie instincts and almost-human thoughts.

Having recently spent time driving at a racetrack myself (totally a one-off thing- I am not a professional racer or driver or NASCAR watcher, although I do own a car) I like to think that I have experienced a tiny little taste of what racing is like. I will not try to hide it- my love of dogs and brush with racing made me inclined to like this book.

In fact, I liked it so much that I feel compelled to defend it! Some of the criticisms I've seen strike me as exaggerated or not well thought out. Here are a few specific criticisms that I want to address:

1. "What is the purpose of having a dog tell the story" or, "The story would have been the same with a human narrator." A few rebuttals. First, what is ever the purpose of having a human tell a story? Better examine your biases. Second, telling the story from Enzo's point of view makes a HUGE difference in the feel of the story. Storytelling is about so much more than "a happens, then b happens, and we end up at c". It's about tone, perspective, and way the storyteller's version leads you to believe certain things. Telling the story from Enzo's unique pov makes for a much different story than if any of the human narrators told it.

2. "This story is too emotional". Emotions are deeply personal and unique to every individual. Because one person found it too emotional doesn't mean that someone else will be moved in the same way. For me, I expected it to be more of a tear jerker (and this is part of the reason why I put it off for so long). The only place I lost it was the epilogue.

3. "Their life is like a soap opera" or "Why did the author have to include 15 year old rape". Three words for you: This. Ish. Happens. And while my own life is (thankfully) less dramatic, cancer, statutory rape, custody battles, and false accusations are here to stay. Some of the reviews I read set me up thinking that some really crazy stuff was going to go down but in truth it's not that crazy. There are no freaky love triangles and the main (human) character is someone you can feel okay with rooting for.

4. "I don't give a crap about racecars" or "cars are bad for the Earth". Why are you reading a book with "racing" in the title if you hate it so much? But for all of you who are on the fence about racing and whether a topic interests you then please bear in mind that reports of the extent of race-talk are grossly exaggerated on this site. Again I was lead through the reviews to expect lots of technical information and pages of droning about races. One reviewer put it at twenty-five percent of the book! Trust me, it's not even close to that much.

Overall, the book is a four. It was great and I really enjoyed reading it. Read it again? Probably not. But I bought the hard copy and will definitely be passing it on to a friend.


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