Rate this book

Cinque Cuccioli Sotto L'albero (2013)

by W. Bruce Cameron(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Giunti

review 1: While nursing a broken heart, Josh Michaels is outraged when a neighbor abandons his very pregnant dog, Lucy, at Josh's Colorado home. Though he's never had a dog before, Josh is determined to do the best he can for Lucy and her soon-to-arrive puppies. He calls the local animal shelter for help, and meets Kerri, who teaches Josh how to care for Lucy's tiny puppies and gets them ready to be adopted through the shelter's "Dogs of Christmas" program. ... Although Josh could have abandoned lucy and the puppies that arrived at his doorstep, he didn't. He feels responsible for them. For example, when the puppies and lusy were under atttacked by coyotes. He could have left them there but insted he went back into the house to get his gun and scared the coyotes away and find the pu... moreppies. This illustrates the importance of the reponsibility of Josh. Another example is when Josh gives away the puppies and gives lucy back to her original owner. This shows that although it was hard for him to give away his "dog family", he still does what he thinks is best for all of them.
review 2: Since this book has puppies in it (and that's really the point...puppies), I couldn't be too harsh on it. The parts with the dogs in them were great. Touching, even. Josh bonding with his dog family was a beautiful thing, his concern for them was adorably sweet.And then there was the people. For being someone who evidently has had dogs in the past and who works at an animal shelter, Kerri sure is, well, stupid about them and the people who love them. She seems to have been in an animal shelter so long that all she can think of when she sees a group of dogs is to find people to give them to! Regardless of who currently owns them. She immediately takes on the assumption that Josh is merely "fostering" all six dogs, even though all of them have clearly been dumped on him, and that because he's never owned dogs before, he should just give all of them up. What. A. B*tch. And when he decides he wants to keep them, this is consistently used as a reason to deny him her obviously desired attention. Any time he disagrees, bam. She's out the door. As if raising and caring for this puppies like their father means absolutely nothing, like he should get to keep none of them, except the mother - until, of course, that goes through the crapshoot, too.This was another thing that fried me. We spend the entire book growing to adore Lucy and Josh as dog and owner, as mommy and daddy, as partners. Then we find out, "Oh. Her owner didn't ditch her. She's actually really nice and, well, bye, doggy." The worst thing is that none of this is handled in a way that makes you feel happy for Lucy, just bad for Josh, because he does consistently keep getting dumped over and over and over again, by everyone in his life. So this shoehorned message about how he needs to 'move on' when this happens and enjoy the good times while they last is not only annoying, but kind of unrealistic, considering that he is in NO WAY obligated to give a certain number of the dogs up.But then, of course, there's Kerri again. Trying to teach him to move on? Honestly, her motivation is fuzzy, at best, and clouded by the fact that she's preaching at him at least every five minutes. This constant preach and abandon maneuver on her part makes the ending rather hamhanded. Not only this, but Kerri clearly knows nothing about dogs, either. Josh is the only one in the story to consider what the dogs want; Kerri seems to think this is ridiculous. Not to mention her approach to introducing animals, especially different species of animals. "Let's socialize the puppies with as many animals as possible. Here's a cat! Aww, the cat's hissing at them and they're running away. Hahaha...adorable." Shut up, Kerri.Also, this has almost nothing to do with the dogs of Christmas. Or almost Christmas at all. Sure, Josh's mother was obsessed with Christmas and started it months early, like his decorating. There are a few Christmas songs. But most of the story is set in October, with November and December flying by before you even know it, and even this would be okay if the book actually spent a good amount of time on Christmas day. Or why Christmas day is so important and special to Josh, other than that his family was all together on that day. But no...it's just sort of...what the Christmas adoption program is called...so there...Okay, so that's a lot of negative. But the parts with the dogs, like I said, were wonderful and adorable. Lucy is my favorite character, of course, and her bond with Josh was just sweet. This author is very descriptive and very good, for the most part. I just wasn't impressed by this book, for the most part. Except the puppies. less

Download links for: Cinque cuccioli sotto l'albero

Advertising