Cover Image: A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

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Member Reviews

Just heart-rending. LOVED this more than I thought I would. Wonderful world building and I'll not forget Griz anytime soon!

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First, I love the cover art! It's so vibrant and bold. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World is a uniquely written dystopian novel. Obviously, the boy and the dog are separated, and the story is the journey to reunite. It's a compelling story with twists and likeable characters. I also found it sad, and the story felt lonely. Overall a good read.

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"A man stole my dog, I went after him. Bad things happened. I can never go home."

In a potential far future, humanity has reached the brink of extinction not with a bang, with a whimper. "It was a soft apocalypse."

Something happened so that the majority of the population was no longer able to have children. With none, or very few, children being born, the people grew older and eventually died. With few progeny to follow after them, the world was reclaimed by nature.

Griz, a young teenager, is one of very few children left alive. He lives with his family on a remote island "... off the Atlantic coast of what used to be Scotland." The mainland is said to be empty of people, but his family stays away from it anyway. They have everything they need to survive on the islands surrounding their home.

Griz is lucky -  he has siblings. This is rare in a world where few children are born. Griz has an older brother and sister and should have one more sister, but she died tragically a few years before Griz's diary entries begin.

Besides his family, the only things he truly loves are his two terrier dogs; Jip and Jess.

When a jovial trader arrives on their island, he does something that changes Griz's life forever after.

This wonderfully vivid story grabbed my attention and held it through it's entirety. In fact, I was so engrossed in the story that I read the entire 336 pages in a single 24 hour span.

This is a coming-of-age tale like no other. Told in the style of diary entries, this book offers a unique perspective on the world as seen through the eyes of a young adult who has spent his entire life sheltered not only by geography, but also by his parents and older siblings.

A major theme of this book is the love between man and dog. It explores exactly how far someone might go to rescue their pet. As a 'dog-person,' I completely understand the depth of Griz's relationships with both Jip and Jess.

Griz faces many adventures and experiences sights and sounds that previously he had only ever read about in books.

Griz writes that "... no one knows the end of their story..." and I felt this quite keenly at the end of the book.

Although the loose ends are all tied up and questions are answered, the author leaves open the possibility of more books starring Griz and his loyal canine companion. I, for one, cannot wait. I very much look forward to reading them.

I am rating this young adult book as 5 out of 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

***Thank you to the Publisher and to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book.***

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Man, I tried really hard to love this one, and there was enough cleverness and novelty that buoyed me through the early chapters to hook my interest, but, sadly, this one lost me about 60% in.

The story of Griz, whose parents were two of the few humans unaffected by a virus spreading infertility, A Boy and His Dog begins on an island off the UK mainland where Griz and his family live a subsistence life of meager farming, fishing, and scavenging from what remains of our world (the timeline seems to place this book at about 100-150 years from our own time). He has two dogs of his own, one of whom is stolen by a mysterious traveler who comes by Griz's family's island.

The author makes some interesting choices, like telling a dystopian story from the perspective of someone who did not experience the fall (think if the boy from The Road, which this book references often, were the protagonist instead of the man) and telling the story in the form of a journal/letter to an unknown our-timer whose picture Griz finds while scavenging.

However, one of the biggest issues in setting a novel in a world where the human population is down to 20,000 or so worldwide is the fact that there really isn't a whole lot; Griz's storytelling style makes the narrative hard to follow, and the unique choice of having a child born after the apocalypse tell the story has a downside in that it makes Griz's descriptions of common settings difficult to understand.

By about 40% in, I became simply indifferent to Griz, and was uninvested in the travels of him or his titular dog (both the one he travels with and the one whom he is on a quest to save). Like a lot of dystopias (and this one references most of them), the book has a great concept and great hook but fails to deliver in the follow through.

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I was completely in awe after reading the first free chapters and thought this would be my "book of the year". Not sure about that after finishing the whole book - but first I want to thank publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy!!! Don't misunderstand: I love the book. It is very unique, a special gem, and not only because its plot of the bonds humans and their pets. Soemtimes the book goes way deeper and makes you think about our Now and a probable Later like the world our narrator is living in in an empty, post-apocalyptic world. I think the beginning and the ending parts are fabulous. I'd re-think the 3.Quarter - the author gets lost in details that are not needed or I'd say: the book carries a special mood. To stay in that details aren't the focus, the story is. You flow through this universe and watch it from above and while passing - stopping for a moment is fine, staying for too long makes restarting the flow difficult.
However, I think and hope that this book will find its way to readers who will see "the feel"!!!!

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I picked up this book because of the cover and the title of the book. Who doesn't love a story about a boy, his dog, and an apocalypse? However, I felt I had to trudge through the narrative of the story.

There was an excessive amount of exposition, which felt too heavy. The dialogue, what little there was in the story, was lackluster and hard to follow since there were no traditional quote marks to show when a character was speaking, which when reading exposition and then all of a sudden it's someone talking, it can be jarring to transition. I found myself skimming portions of the chapters because it felt too difficult to get through some of the detail that didn't keep me involved in the storyline.

At one point, all I cared about was finding out what happened to the dog. I did like the last portion of the book and the ending, and it had a good twist.

I'm not sure I would recommend this book, however.

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What a moving and insightful story. This book explores the bond of humans and animals. With a powerful voice, engaging writing, and vivid imagery, this title will live on in reader’s hearts.

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