The Dog That Talked to God - Inspirational Christian Fiction Novel About Faith & Divine Communication | Perfect for Book Clubs, Bible Study Groups & Personal Spiritual Growth

I waited for a few days after finishing this book to decide how I would write a review for it. This was a book that I found entertaining, and yet there were things about it that I didn't like very much. I will detail what I did like first. I thought the author did a really good job of giving his female lead character life. She had a past that was described enough to make you understand her and feel sympathy for her without going into so much detail about her life up to the point of the story to make you lose interest. I thought the dog was great. Jim Kraus did an excellent job describing the temperament of the breed and I don't think he could have chosen a better breed to work with in general. When you look into the eyes of that kind of dog you almost believe they are thinking something important. The way the author portrayed the life of a widow seemed adequate to me and her reawakening into the world of dating and meeting people and moving on after tragedy all felt like it was natural and easy to follow. I thought the relationship she had with her dog, particularly at one point in the story where she suddenly realized that his company was truly enough to make her feel blessed, was done beautifully and was believable. I place great importance on my relationship with my dog and I'm sure many others do as well. The single thing that I love about this book more than anything else is that this author was so good at giving this woman a life as a writer that some of the other reviewers forgot entirely that it was written by a man and have actually tried to look up other books by this fictional character. I guess he fooled them; which says a lot for how good his character building is. Although there were many things I loved about this book, there were some things I didn't as well. For a book that is titled "The Dog That Talked To God," I felt there should have been a little more talking dog rather than whining grown woman. I understand her position, I truly do. She is struggling with her faith and trying to figure out what to make of her life after a horrific event changed the course. Still, there were times when I found this character downright unlikeable. She is obsessed with having the upper hand over her friends by having the better grammar and the best vocabulary and even picks on her best friend about it. I found that offensive and it made me feel distant from her plight within the story. I was kind of hoping that this non-biting breed would give her a good nip in the tush. The fact that she was ever satisfied with a husband who thought she was more or less "good enough," instead of absolutely beautiful made me gag. She apparently needed to do more than find her self a talking dog and reestablish a relationship with God to make her less self-conscious. I couldn't reconcile her high opinion of herself professionally with a woman who was content with a husband who simply thought she was "pretty." The two traits didn't fit in the same body. At times the story didn't seem to flow and especially at the end, I wondered how the author was content to describe every step of her move to a new place including the packing and the contents of her refrigerator, and yet suddenly at the end she is married but apparently the readers weren't invited to the wedding as it was a complete shock. I found that she sounded like she was bragging throughout the book about her accomplishments as a writer and yet at one point she is afraid to spend more than fifty bucks on a "dutch" date. Certain points in the book had me scratching my head. How easily she accepts that her dog is actually talking to her and the way she treats him like he is a dog/human/love interest/counselor...really? There were times when the dog appeared to be much smarter than she was. The effect was laughter on my part where I am sure there was no humor intended. Finally, the woman can't throw a punch worth dog poo. If I were going to punch out the guy who had been irresponsible with the life of my dog, I would have made contact with his nose. Overall this was a pretty good story and after much consideration, I think the dog deserved three stars and the author deserved one for coming up with him. The main character gets a big fat ZERO for being a parvenu (ooh vocabulary) of the literary world. I guess that means this book gets four stars. Really, read it and see what you think. The dog deserves the love.