Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs

Every dog lover has had dogs that have deeply impacted their lives. That is the theme Jennifer Finney Boylan sets out to explore in Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs. A play on the expression “good boy”, Boylan’s memoir is about her journey from boyhood to womanhood, framed by the lives of the dogs that were a part of her life at the time. It is a candid, anecdotal recollection of her life up to this point. I didn’t even make it through the first chapter before I was already both laughing and crying. That being said, given the subject matter, I expected it to be a far more sentimental tale. I anticipated reading this book in phases, overcome with emotion as each chapter ended in the demise of her canine companion. However, this was not the case. Instead of focusing on the inevitable loss of each dog, Boylan focuses on their lives, and on moments with each dog that shaped her life. Whether or not you are a dog lover, I would recommend this book. It is a tale of friendship, love, and self-acceptance. It’s a beautiful, candid portrait of one woman’s life, and the moments that have shaped it.

This was a very meandering memoir. In the beginning half of the book it jumped from childhood to adult to even babyhood from paragraph to paragraph and it was hard to stay in the story when it kept doing that. They stories themselves were interesting, I just wish it had been more of a chronological timeline for that bit. It got a bit better when the author reached their adulthood, with not quite as much jumping around though there was one part after Alex's death that suddenly he is alive and well again in the next paragraph of another story. I guess you could say that this book is like when you are at a family reunion and you end up sitting next to a very old relative who relates to you their whole life story, with lots of jumping around so you never know when the stories quite happen so you just enjoy the ride (and sometimes endure it too). That would be my feeling towards this book.