[.ca] Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish

Why Did He Write This?:
I love dogs and I love books about dogs, but this one stinks. Sorry.

For a dog lover:
Bought this book for a friend who recently lost a very dear four-legged friend. They appreciated the book.

Read this if you ever loved and lost a dog:
The dogs I have grieved most intensely over, I realize, have been the ones I who were in my life the shortest amount of time. Perhaps it is the deep wish that more time could have been granted to me with these dogs. So it was I think with Mark, who had only two short years with Sprite, and whose detailed expression of grief was more pure and honest and heart-wrenching than any I could ever imagine. This man has given us a gift of his love and devotion, and his book is a tribute not only to Sprite but to all of us who have ever felt what he did. The reviewers who didn't read the book all the way through missed the most valuable part of it -- it wasn't about the dog himself, with all kinds of amazing and enjoyable cute "stories", but about Mark's FEELINGS about this dog, expressed so incredibly well as Sprite's days came to an end. I think this will be a catharsis for many readers who have gone through the same thing fighting the pain all the way. The only way to deal with it is to let yourself feel it. This will help, I know it will. It helped me.

Really bad book:
I received this book for Christmas from my sister, because she knows what a great dog lover I am. (If she had read the book first, I'm certain she wouldn't have forwarded it to me.) I think I'm safe in saying that it is the most poorly-written book I've ever read. It's boring, rambling, name-dropping, and self-indulgent.

A good dog story:
Who doens't like a great dog story? I know I do. Rescuing Sprite is just that. I admire Mark Levin and the love he has for his dogs Pepsi and Sprite. It takes a special family to adopt an older dog. I found most of the novel to be general and generic discriptions of his life with the dogs, and I wish we got to know more about who the dogs were and some of the adventures with them. I feel like it was missing that for the reader- the essence of who the dogs were. We all love our dogs, but it's missing the things that make books like Grogan's Marley and Me so awesome. If you really want to read a great dog book read that one. This one was not a page turner since I felt like Levin just recounted events rather than roped you into a story. Still, it's moving the emotion he had for his animals.