Finally Home: Lessons On Life From a Free Spirited Dog, by Elizabeth Parker

Finally Home: Lessons On Life From A Free Spirited Dog by Elizabeth Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The past decade or so have seen numerous books come out in groups: Jane Austen books (those with Jane Austen in the title and/or as an updated version of an Austen book), animal books (following the success of Marley & Me, The Art of Running In the Rain, and Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, and, more recently, vampire books.

Having read several books from the animal genre, including the much-loved Marley & Me, I decided to read Finally Home: Lessons on Life From A Free Spirited Dog, by Elizabeth Parker. (Disclaimer: It helped that it was temporarily on the "free Kindle book" list.)

Parker and her fiance found themselves the owners of a rambunctious Golden Retriever name Buddy. Buddy had gone through several owners before winding up with the couple. It didn't take the two long to figure out why he had worn out his welcome with previous owners; he was a handful. Almost half-way through the book, the couple adds a second dog, Brandi, in the hopes that a buddy for Buddy would calm him down. Eventually, the two dogs bonded.

While I kept hoping for another Marley & Me or Glenn Plaskin's Katie Up and Down the Hall, Finally Home never quite jelled. While Buddy seemed like an energetically amusing dog, the book lacked a decent path to follow. It seemed not much more than one amusing anecdote after another. Parker's obvious love for Buddy, and later, Brandi, come through. However, while John Grogan (Marley & Me) wove how Marley came into his family's life and became part of his family, and Plaskin was able to show how Katie was the thread that wove several unrelated families into a larger family, Parker's book has little flow beyond the "we bought Buddy, anecdote, anecdote, ... , we bought Brandi, anecdote..." I wanted to love the book, and while I found parts of Finally Home funny, Parker would have served her readers - and Buddy - better by showing how Buddy became part of her life and her family.

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