4 comments about DogSense: 99 relationship tips from your canine companion.

1. A perfect "coffee-table" book. Cute pictures with great stories to go along. Who can resist dogs? (I'm not just saying this because me and my dog are in it!!)



2. DogSense is a delightful book to curl up with.Also makes a wonderful book to give as a gift.



3. THE BOOK HITS HOME WHEN IT COME TO OUR BEHAVIOR TOWARDS EACH OTHER. KIND OF MAKES YOU THINK. GOOD BOOK



4. I JUST KEEP ADDING MORE AND MORE PEOPLE TO MY GIFT LIST THAT WOULD BE THRILLED TO GET SUCH A "COOL" GIFT. EACH PAGE MAKES ME SMILE. THE AUTHOR'S WORDS ARE SOOOO TRUE TO WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPHER SO PERFECTLY CAPTURED. THIS IS A PERFECT GIFT FOR ANY OCCASION, PARTICULARLY HOLIDAY TIME. IT MAILS EASILY (I'VE ALREADY MAILED 10!) AND WILL LOOK JUST GREAT UNDER ANYONE'S TREE. PERFECT BOOK, PERFECT TIME TO BUY SEVERAL; A REAL FUN BOOK!

4 comments about Golden Retrievers Complete Owner's Manual.

1. I found this book very imformative without being over done. It was exactly what I was looking for in a first time book on Golden Retrievers. I highly recommend this book if you are considering puchasing a GR or at all intersted in this breed.



2. This Is the best book ever for puppy training



3. It is an extremely awful & boring books that I had read. The content was very 'rubbish', please don't buy this book.It's waste your money and more important, it's waste your time, too.



4. No extraction information from purchasers or medical veternarians. (Not anticipated for this type of guide.) One of the more mediocre and sub par publishings on sale. This book is not overly technical in a matter, however not the basic lore a beginning purchaser may need to progress to the more advanced handbooks. The author has not likely obtained enough research for complexity to please most critics in modern day style. To put it rather briefly, the one manual worth the expense would be Nona K. Baur's guide, which contains better categorization, specifics, and overall quality. This is the only manual most definetely worth the expense and payment.

1 comments about How to Train Your Golden Retriever (Tr-101).

1. Easy to read book with lots of color pictures of goldens in every day life. Well organized. Helpful hints in blue boxes that catch your attention. Goldens are smart dogs who can easily think of things to do when bored; book has helpful information on counteracting this problem. Would recommend this book as a good first book for anyone interested in goldens.

5 comments about The Golden Retriever Puppy Handbook.

1. As the proud mother of a perfect Gold-Rush Golden I can say that Ms. Johnson really knows what she is talking about. Do your homework first, know what you are getting into as far as time and cost goes. Don't buy any dog from a "puppy mill." Better yet adopt from a Golden Retriever Rescue Group.



2. About a year ago I began reading books about Golden Retrievers as this was the breed of dog I thought would make a great family pet. After reading The Golden Retriever Puppy Handbook by Ann Johnson I made an appointment with Gold-Rush Kennels to get a puppy. I was so impressed by the author's expertise on this breed & her incredible insight into Golden Retriever behavior. I purchased a beautiful 10 week old puppy from Gold Rush & couldn't be happier! My pup is now 8 months old. & I find myself consulting Ms. Johnson's book frequently for info. regarding his development & behavior. What's so amazing is with each passing month, every chapter I read is so accurate about the phase of develop my pup is experiencing! Ann Johnson's insight into Golden behavior is so "on target."
   
   This book is a "Must Read" for anyone who is considering owning a Golden Retriever. You will find yourself reaching for this book often as your pup grows.



3. I really did not care for this book. I much preferred Goldens for Dummies.



4. OK--Welcome back to my reviews--apparently I did not put the voting mechanism on my first review of this book, and luckily that gives me the opportunity to write another one. . letting you know how things turned out with my darling golden puppy. She just had her 3rd birthday and she is fabulous.
   
   Well the truth is--BERIT is perfect for me. But how did she get to perfect? Simply because in the early days--any time I had a little issue with her--I found the answer, the solution or the reason in this handbook. Little things, big things--its all there. I am convinced that no one knows GOLDENS like Ann Johnson. This book leaves nothing out. . .there are things that Ann covers in this book that BERIT has yet to pull on me!!
   
   I consulted this book many many days (and continue to do so)--guidance from this book kept my puppy gloriously "golden".
   
   When you choose a Golden--you are not a "Dummy", so you should not choose a book that indicates that Goldens are for Dummy's. You are a champion. And this book is the book for champions.
   
   For the love of goldens--trust Ann.
   
   Susan and BERIT.



5. Positives: It's one of the few books out there that offer info. on development specific to the golden--when to expect certain milestones, when to spay/neuter (there is reason to wait),personality changes at certain stages, etc.
   
   Negatives: Some topics covered felt more like a biology textbook. I was ok because I have a medical background but could easily see how those chapters could turn the lay person off. Furthermore, I wish the book had more depth in certain areas and less in others.
   
   Overall, a good book to own. Not perfect, but after browsing through many golden books, this one came closest to what I was looking for.

5 comments about Why Goldens Do That: A Collection Of Curious Golden Retriever Behaviors.

1. 
   
   I gave this book 5 stars due to two things: excellent, delightful pictures of golden retrievers in all sorts of places and the text
   which must be read out loud to be appreciated. You won't get a vet's answer to these such questions as Why are Goldens always Napping?
   Davis gives an answer that napping helps them avoid some potential while-awake danger and hey, people who nap a lot are a friendly lot and so are napping Goldens. No technical best-in-show tips here. But a fun,fun read and very pleasing photographs of those dogs who never really act like real dogs. And we love them.



2. This is a very good book--the pictures are great and worth the price of the book themselves. The "curious Golden Retriever behaviours" are basically curious behaviours of ANY breed of dog, with one or two exceptions, but still it was a very interesting book and it helps you to understand why your dog does some of the (somewhat disgusting ) things it does.



3. This book is very well written. I gave this book to my husband for Christmas. He is enjoying sharing wtih me and with others about things that goldens do! We both have learned some things as to why goldens do what they do? For example,why do goldens rebel when they are between one and two years old ? The answer is because they are essentially teenagers.
   I would recommend this book to anyone that has a golden. There is never a dull moment with a golden in your household.
   
   



4. I gave this as a gift to a friend who owns a Golden. He loved it. He's already passing it around to others to read.



5. I had really hoped to get some serious answers to some Golden 'quirks', instead I found this book to be cute and slightly entertaining, but not in the least informative. If you're seeking concrete information, this book is probably not for you. If all you want is a cute book about Goldens, then go for it and enjoy!

5 comments about Golden Retrievers for Dummies.

1. This reference book was really informational. It did however focus a lot of it on a golden retreiver puppy or how to take care of one. If you already have a grown golden retriever, I don't think this book is right for you, but it's still good at looking at health tips and information.
   
   There are a lot of instances in the book where the author makes her own comments, as if she is talking. If that will bother you, then don't get this book.
   
   It's a really good book if you are deciding to get a Golden Retriever puppy or new dog because it gives you fundamental things to know for taking care of a puppy or new dog coming home. I think a person should read this book before getting a dog or golden retriever because it does help educate you to learn more on the breed. However, this book is mostly generalized stuff that you can already search on the internet or online resources.
   
   I think this book was very helpful, so I think you should get it if you have no idea on how to take care of a dog.
   
   See ya!



2. I've not had a dog since I was a child so I need ALL the help I can get. The only thing I was looking for that this book didn't discuss was the topic of selecting and installing doggie doors, so for that you'll need to go elsewhere. Otherwise, I loved it.



3. I just a got a pup a few weeks ago and I open this book daily to look something up, or to prepare for new skills I want to teach. Not all of suggestions have worked (supplementing with puppy training classes). It's probably best to have a few books on goldens - this one serves as a good general reference.



4. I purchased this book used on Amazon shortly after I got my new golden retriever puppy, Maggie. Having wanted a golden retriever for as long as I can remember, I was so excited to bring her home even if it was in a small dilapidated cardboard box. After surviving 2 LOOONNNGGG days with a new puppy, thinking how I could have made such a mistake (at the time), I realized I needed some professional help. The book was very helpful and went on to describe issues goldens have, how to potty train, obedience train, crate train, proper food etc they need. what I really liked was not only needing puppy training like I did, I needed it to be golden retriever specific, and that it was. It tells you the types of health problems they're prone to, traits they have and things they're good at. I found it extremely helpful. I would definitely recommend it! In case you're wondering, Maggie is now a healthy, happy just had her first year birthday golden! Yeah we still have some things we need to work on, And as for me, I survived the first year!



5. For someone don't know anything about dog or how to take care of a dog. It helps.

5 comments about Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever 2008 (Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever Series).

1. This is my fourth VH book. Because of the price, I limit my purchase to one every three years.... Personally I love being able to pull out the book and find the name of some movie I can't remember simply by looking up the director, actor, genre, etc or even better, comparing MY opinion to theirs (which is usually pretty spot on). BUT HEY, VH guys, why not show us some loyalty/compassion and put out One book every five years and sell (at a much cheaper price) yearly adendums? just a thought.



2. Video Hound is a trusted resource in checking out movies before viewing--the reviews are usually right on the money and are often humorous to read. I use this guide book and cross reference the reviews with Leonard Maltin-- using both books, you cannot go wrong.



3. Couldn't wait to receive this tome of video nuggets, but the first movie I looked up, one of my favorites, had a short, lame, synopsis that didn't even touch one iota on the uniqueness, humor or twists involved in the plot. (It's a cult classic, Rustler's Rhapsody, with Tom Berenger and Andy Griffith; hilarious). It is more than obvious that the editor and staff didn't see the movie, nor talked to anyone that had. Guess I'll relegate it to the use as a door-stop or grandchild booster at the dinner table. There are worse fates, I guess.



4. Every movie ever made. With summary, IDs of actors, writer, Director. What more can I say?



5. My wife and I have been buying this book annually since the early/mid 90's. It's been a rare moment that it has disappointed, and believe it or not, the reviews are intelligently written and, in this movie nut's opinion much more fair and helpful to the would-be viewer than many of the top US newspaper's and web site's highly paid guns-for-hire. I don't want to put across the impression that all "big-time" critics aren't really that great, but more and more often these folks seem to think they're in a competition with their counterparts to see who can find and use the most obscure phraseology and biting criticism that it's like trying to follow a Dennis Miller routine if you haven't read every major newspaper in the country that day! These folks seem to understand the critics job in more of an everyman way, sure they're witty, and they can bite with the biggest dogs out there, but we find that the reviews are very often right on the money. It rates on a system of dog bones, 1 bone (actually they have a no-bone rating, simply stated as "woof") through 4 bones, and when they give a movie 4 bones, I think you would really have to try very hard to find that particular movie unlikable. We have rented or purchased a "4-boner" on those criteria alone. Just my opinion, but they just seem to tell it like it is, but still have a little fun with it. After all, it is a MOVIE, right? You laugh, you cry, yada, yada. Of course, it has to get bigger every year, (2008's has 1800+ pages, but it's also a blast just to scan thru...because as well as reviewing almost every movie made, the reviews give exhaustively complete credits, i.e., cinematography, music score, screenplay, based on a book by ___, etc., etc., you also get, after the movie section, a cross-referencing group of sections that defies you to try and play "stump the Hound". If you cannot find out information on, say, Bud Cort's first film appearance, (M.A.S.H.) or maybe a disturbing filmography of David Lynch, this is where you look. I would say it could satisfy (at least to a certain extent!), the very freakishly obsessed with movies and movie-making trivia. Just stroll through the section on actors, and you'll soon learn that many of your favorite star's went through a relatively inauspicious beginning, and that's just one of the many categories that are almost voyeuristic in their "completeness"...directors, with their bodies of work just lying there chronologically for you to pick at, lol, the category list, which contains genre, sub-genre, thematic, even significant scene selections, and a "kibbles and series" list, actually a bunch of off the wall indexes rolled into one index...you would look here to find out what your favorite movie's genesis really was...literary, theatrical, cartoon, television adaptations, plus there's a quality check with categories like "woofs", "4 bones" top grossing, jeez, I'm getting carpal tunnel while trying (woefully unsuccessfully) to keep this somewhat short. If you like movies check it out, if you love them, just buy it. My wife and I started calling it the "boner book" from the second week we found our first one. BTW...you can pre-order the '09 edition right now, you sicko!

5 comments about Dog Years: A Memoir (P.S.).

1. (I read this book and was touched by it enough to write an email to my Dog Loving Friends) Here is what I wrote:
   
   Dear Dog Loving Friends,
   
   Over the past few days I read a book that I checked out of the library called Dog Years written by Mark Doty.
   
   The book moved me so much that I intend to buy a copy for me to keep as my own. (And I never ever buy books to own.)
   
   I recommend it to you (if you will endure the more poetic parts of it and seemingly random diversionary discussions), and I recommend it to Connie's hairdresser given that he owns 14 dogs. Susanne, if you can pass this on to Connie or make mention, I would be grateful.
   
   The book is told in the first person. It is a memoir of sorts - reminds me of a scrapbook in a way - with lots of "photos" (the photos being stories) of dogs, but other "momentoes" stuck in the book such as random musings on poetry and sidebar discussions on such non-dog related topics as Judy Garland, the difference between dispair and depression....and boy does he nail it when he decribes depression. I am not quoting directly but something like: "Depression moves in heavily and sits in the sink as the dirty dishes from yesterday" ....
   
   As strange as all the pieces were, it comes together quite lovely. Like a meal or a recipe in which I would have NEVER thought to combine all those ingredients, but it worked beautifully.
   
   This book all made sense to me (except for some of the poetry..ok, ok, so I admidt I am missing the Emily Dickenson gene along with the cooking gene, but I will go back and carefully re-read some of the poetry.) I especially liked the poem on the wind. See that is the great thing about this book. I just finished it and already I am eager to read it again.
   
   The book starts slowly and gets much better after a few chapters. I was momentarily confused between a dog named Wally and a man named Wally, and I was mildly irritated that the author used the word "fierce" or a very similar word 3 times on the same page. jeeze, picky, picky.
   
   But then on the other hand, I rather LIKED this "flaw" because I felt like he was not a honed pretentious writer following all those rules we learn in English and writing classes, but instead he was really writing from the heart. And I myself, of course, cannot even write one smidgen as well as Doty.
   
   Doty, an artistic insightful angst ridden gay man, recollects his past and how important his dogs were to him. He brilliantly perceptively and precisely captures what I think we see and love in our dogs. I was constantly saying "YES, YES, YES!" outloud to myself while reading. I wept copiously at the end.
   
   The manner in which he desribes his dogs "resonates" with me (I hate to use that overused word, but it really fits here).
   
   Because Doty is a poet, he sees his dogs through poetic artistic eyes.
   
   The book will make you laugh and cry. I hope you take time to read it. See the reader reviews in the link below. (and I copied in the link to Amazon for my friends to click to).
   
   - later -



2. This book moved me to write a review here, my first. I can hardly express how touching this book was for me. Sad in nature but told with such exquisite elegance it took me months to finish because though I enjoyed it throughly, reading it was an intense emotional experience, not unlike grieving. There are single lines and sections in this book that when thinking of them later, tears snap to my eyes. I am a true dog lover who can relate to the deep devotion and attachment to our dogs as expressed in this book. Mark has used language beautifully to tell his story.



3. The poet shares the relationship he had between his dogs and himself in "Dog Years: A Memoir". Mark Doty (born 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee) is the only American poet to have received the T.S. Eliot Prize in the U.K. He received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont. Doty, who is gay, has written about his struggle with coming to terms with his sexual identity, and with the impact on AIDS on the gay community. In 1989, his partner Wally Roberts tested positive for HIV, which drastically changed his writing. Wally died in 1994. Doty is currently the John and Rebecca Moores Professor in the graduate program at the University of Houston.
   Mark Doty relates his experiences of his time with his two dogs, Arden the black retriever, and Beau the gold one. Mark also shares the passing of his long time partner Wally who was diagnosed and died of AIDS. Arden kept Mark alive, uplifted his soul and gave him will to live by its comforting gestures and by giving joy in his little ways. Arden and Beau became his true friends, became part of the household, and played a big part in Mark Doty's life. The dogs were his companions during his lowest moments, shared his grievances, and happiness as well.
   
   Mark starts a happy new life with his dogs and Paul, also a writer. But a time came when his dogs starts to decline because of illness. Beau developed a kidney disease, while Arden is having a high fever and showing unusual signs. Along with this is the devastating 9/11 where Mark continues to differentiate despair and depression. According to Mark: "Depression is always the consequence of despair, a despair one cannot feel one's way through in order to emerge from the other side, a despair will not be moved".
   
   The dogs' everyday struggle reminds Mark of how hard Wally's gradual passing was. In Mark's recollection of the years he spent with the dogs, Arden and Beau gave him unconditional love and companionship throughout their lives.
   Dog Years is one beautiful way of giving tribute to all dogs in the world, who are loyal and ready to accompany their masters until their dying day. The book depicts an unforgettable experience between a man and a pet. At first, I got confused between his dogs and his boyfriend, because he describes his dogs like human beings. I love the poems he puts after every chapter, it makes the book more interesting although I don't really understand some of them. I'll admit some of the chapters in the book were boring and depressing, but I was moved when his dogs became really ill and helpless. They really are like humans. I have a Shih-Tzu named Bruno, and I can't imagine losing him too when the time comes.
   
   On a scale of 1-10, I would give it an eight. The book failed to get my attention in the first few chapters, but the book helped me a lot in understanding my dog's feelings, and the last chapter was very moving that I almost cry. I would definitely read another book by Mark Doty, I'm planning to get the Firebird when I'm not busy. I'm recommending this book not only to dog lovers or owners, but also to anyone who has experienced attachment and loss.



4. Mark Doty has penned an absolute gem of a memoir that touches not only on our umbreakable bonds with our animals, but also with our mates and the many places that we will call "home" throughout our lives - and the grief that we all must embrace and learn from in the loss of all of these. His story of Wally, Arden and Beau is a masterpiece of the heartfelt thoughts and feelings that all dog owners will experience if they are lucky enough to be loved unconditionally by one, or more, beloved human beings and furry angels.
   In Chapter 15, after the recent death of his mate, Wally, and one of his dogs, Beau, Doty tells us of an abandoned dog that he befriends on Calle Canal in San Miquel de Allende, a hill town north of Mexico City.
   He tries to rescue her and is heartbroken to have to leave her behind, writing, "I am grateful to have felt even this sharp sadness. The dog on Calle Canal awakens me; she shows me that I have come through something now. I write to bless her delicate head, the paw raised in hope. How should we know ourselves, except in the clarifying mirror of some other gaze?"
   I finished the book in one day. And if you aren't into full throttle tears by Chapter 16 & 17 (the final chapters), then you have never known the joy and anticipation of there being "someone at home, waiting to go for a walk."



5. I was really looking forward to Doty's so-called memoir, Dog Years, but it just didn't deliver. While there are some fine and moving passages here and there about loss and loving an animal, this book doesn't really qualify as a true "memoir," and it's not much of a "dog book" either. If you want to read a good dog book/memoir, try Hal Borland's classic, The Dog Who Came to Stay. It's great. Doty's effort simply strays too far afield from either genre to suit my apparently plebian tastes. There are sections here, littered with quotes from Emily Dickinson and Doty's ruminations on same, or references to Cezanne or Heraclitus, which could have been lifted from his Freshman poetry lectures, which is not what I expected - or wanted. Maybe there is so little about Doty because he's already written two memoirs. Well, okay; but don't call this a memoir, because it's not. I'm tempted to read his first memoir; maybe that would be a real one, but this book is sub-titled under false pretenses. The narrative meanders here and there and sometimes I wondered where the hell he was going with it. It was a struggle just to finish it. Sorry, Mark. Write a memoir or write poetry, but don't try to do both at once. - Tim Bazzett, author of Pinhead: A Love Story

No comments about Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever 2009 (Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever).

5 comments about The Darkest Evening of the Year.

1. It is unpleasant to admit that a great one has feet of clay, especially a great one whom one has come to expect has no flaws artistically. But such is the case when I just completed reading Dean Koontz's The Darkest Evening of the Year. It is an example of the courtesan revealing herself to be nothing more than a whore with good make-up.
   
   The great Koontz traits are here--innocents in peril, deranged evil psychopaths on the march toward Armageddon, righteous causes beautifully expressed, lavish prose that requires one to read slowly and repeatedly--but this book is a mess. It's a great man writing simply to write, either for money or expediency, but without conviction or compelling need. A pay check will do.
   
   Koontz, when working with his favorite dogs, golden retrievers, can still call forth a tear to the most jaded eye. But really! This is just a mish-mush. He creates a sinister psychopath, Vanessa, who is nothing more than a wan imitation of his great female nutsoid, Datura. This girl has no reason to exist, she has no background, family, or believability that would have produced such a monster except for Koontz's desire to shock us.
   
   Then there are the trademark Koontz tropes--the nice guy who kills at the end of a chapter, so coldly, so irrationally. The weird but believable sub characters who populate an underworld we hope does not exist. The use of the word "susurration." (I wait for that and the use of the word "butter" to make sure I am truly in "le monde Koontz.") But this book is all formula, no substance.
   
   Let's see. There is the demimonde of a child who is inarticulate but wise, oh so wise. Dogs have prescience and supernatural goodness and direction. Intuition trumps all rationality and reason. Coincidence is accepted as a "not to be questioned" fact of life. This book, in short, drips with the formulaic Koontz fantasies that can make even his best works descend into laughable, eye-rolling nonsense that sabotages his considerable skill and creativity.
   
   I have a golden retriever who is the love of my life, but he is not capable of sensing evil, as are Koontz's dogs. I am glad that there are people so dedicated to their preservation and protection that a whole subspecies of people have evolved to create evolved habitats for them. But that these dogs have become so evolved as to be able to predict and direct human events, including sprouting wings and reversing time and tragedy, is just too preposterous for words. Dean Koontz is drinking and petting his golden retriever and growing lachrymose and insane.
   
   This book adheres to the Swiss Cheese School of Dilapidated Writing. Holes, holes, everywhere there are holes in this inane plot. He pulls on his successes in other works, recycles them, and fails to substantiate any coherence. The arch villain, Harrow, is not really who he says he is. Harrow seems to have evolved in the writing and given a plot twist that is jejune. I didn't buy it for a minute.
   
   Vanessa is his true downfall--incredibly creepy and unlikeable but totally unbelievable on every level. Datura, in Odd Thomas, on the other hand, was totally great and believable. Vanessa is just a piece of Koontz schlock. Oh look how horrible I am--I will abuse and kill an autistic child. Right.
   
   I hate it when Koontz subverts his talents for a paycheck, knowing that his books will sell, no matter how implausible. He can, and does, create a turn of phrase better than anyone else, but there are lines in this book that are truly laughable. Pseudo profundity is expected to cancel plot deficiency and character plausibility. Well, Dean, it doesn't. This book is neither moving nor exciting. It is simply a sentimental wallow in Golden Retriever Uber Alles nonsense.
   
   I have loved Dean Koontz's talented forays into the world of the insane and the frightening, but this book reveals his predilection to trivialize his talent for personal gain. If he has no better ideas for a book, then he should quit writing. Every great artist needs a gray eminence who will tell him that his work should not see the light of day, but apparently Koontz doesn't have this person at his publisher's. He needs to have this person to say, "Dean, this is crap--delete it, burn it if you have printed it, but don't put this out there."
   
   Let's make a list of the absurdities of this story: Amy Redwing gets a call from a nun dead for ten years. Brian, a low-level talent of architecture, suddenly develops a skill for drawing of a golden retriever, drawings which are of unmatched excellence but which inspire Amy to do the equivalent of "That's nice." A murdered child channels herself to get revenge through a golden retriever that has her same name. An abused child also channels the dead girl with the same dream. Amy is an orphan, plus two, who is befriended by a golden retriever in a convent that adopts the dog and eulogizes it in what is virtually a pagan ritual. Now, this kind of nonsense goes on and on, but it all adds up to some kind of kinky catharsis for Koontz, but not for the reader. The reader is left wondering about the sanity of the author and the publishing house.
   
   Dean Koontz has always walked the tightrope between realism and the supernatural, but here he allows himself to fall over into the realm of fantasy and unbelievability. He allows himself to wallow in the maudlin, forsaking his duty to his readers to present a plausible explanation for the brush with the fantastic.
   
   This book is poison, without any redeeming virtues. Avoid it at all costs, but do not ignore the rest of the Koontz body of work. Someone failed him here.
   
   Final Note: The title has nothing to do with the story whatsoever!



2. Most of this book was great. I love Koontz caracture devolepment.I just wanted a better ending. I felt like it was wrapped up to fast and left me unfulfuilled.



3. Just got done listening to the audio book. I had to keep listening to see how much sicker it could get. Unbelievable villains that are so silly they are laughable. Save your money, go to a book store, read the last page of the book and see how STUPID the ending is.



4. Of course this book isn't up to par with some of the scariest mind-boggling material that DK has given us in the past. However, I believe that this book is the one that helps us feel closest to his heart.



5. There was a time, not too long ago even, when the sight of a new Dean Koontz book on the shelve sent me to my wallet to see if I could afford an impulse buy. Dragon Tears, Mr Murder, Velocity, Strangers. Each book kept me riveted and I, more often than not, read the book in one or two days.
   
   Sadly, I can still read Mr. Koontz in one or two days, but not for the same reasons. The prose is nowhere near up to the standards of his older novels. The characters are flat, the stories are lifeless, and if you don't happen to love dogs (and I mean REALLY love dogs. Like to an insane degree), the story will just come off as overdone, preachy and pointless.
   
   In this book, he tried to go back to his roots with the psychopathic-for-no-real-reason villain. But I think it's been so long since he did that, that he's lost the ability to do it believably.
   
   Mr. Koontz has inadvertantly published a parody of himself. The thrill I once felt seeing his name on a bookstore shelf has been replaced with a gentle tug of recognition when I see it in a library. I keep checking out his books, hoping for a hint of what I once loved, but so far I have been burned on "The Good Guy," "The Husband" (for the longest time, I could have sworn those two were the same book), and even "Brother Odd," felt like a pale imitation of "Odd Thomas" (which, BTW, may have been the last Dean Koontz book I truly enjoyed. Perhaps the series is an attempt to hold on to that). And don't even get me started on the Frankenstein books.
   
   I'm probably going to keep checking Koontz books out from the library, and they're still probably going to sit, unread, next to my chair until the due date more often than not.
   
   I cannot begin to say how much it pains me to write a review THIS BAD about an author I used to read nonstop. I would finish one book and then immediately head out to find another. I had a Dean Koontz section on my bookshelf at home.
   
   I would hope that Mr Koontz would stop writing books like this, but his two loves at the moment seem to be religion and dogs, and after one or two books, that really starts to wear out it's welcome. I'll mourn the Koontz of old, and sadly shake my head at this new, lovey-dovey dog-lover Koontz that replaced him.
   
   It IS possible to write a love story to dogs and still fit in a great story (just read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" if you don't believe me). Koontz just doesn't seem willing to take time out of his four-or-five-so-so books a year schedule to write one really great one.