REVIEW: There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff

I'm really not sure what to make of There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff.  I've really loved all of the other books that I've read by her (which is to say, all of them!) and I knew that There Is No Dog would be completely different from her usual work.  And I think part of the problem with my experience of reading There Is No Dog is that I wanted it to be more along the lines of what I was used to from Meg Rosoff.

It took a long time for me to settle into the fact that this book is humorous, for one.  And my hardback book was only 220 or so pages.  So that was an adjustment that had to be made during reading and it didn't leave as much story to be appreciated as I'd have liked.

There Is No Dog is a funny story in which God is in fact a sullen and moody teenage boy, named Bob, who ends up with the position of God after his mother wins the job in a game of poker and passes it on to him.  And Bob, with his hard-working and sensible assistant, creates the world and all the animals and people in it but doesn't much care for the day-to-day running of it.  He ignores the piles of prayers that come in, he doesn't seem to appreciate the position that he's put people into, or understand mortality.  He doesn't care about the plight of whales like his assistant Mr B, who really should have gotten the job, does.  Instead Bob is sex-mad and lazy and a bit useless, really.

The story seems to revolve around the relationship that Bob begins with Lucy, an assistant zookeeper who would really like to fall in love.  Bob sees Lucy as perfection and despite the advice given by Mr B and by Bob's mother, Bob pursues Lucy and in doing so sets off bizarre weather phenomenon which revolves around Bob's feelings regarding Lucy. 

I think, perhaps, if the narrators of this book were fewer, I'd have gotten along with it better.  We see things from everyone's point of view from Bob, Lucy and Mr B, to Lucy's parents and whole cast of minor characters, which I didn't think were necessary. For me, the quick changes in perspective made me feel less emotionally connected to the characters and the story.

This book, though more than a little strange, did touch on some really interesting and thought-provoking ideas about creation and faith in a funny way.  While I didn't love it as much as Meg Rosoff's previous books, I can still appreciate her style of writing, her sense of humour and her interesting cast of characters!  I shall definitely be eagerly anticipating Meg Rosoff's new book out this year, Picture Me Gone.