First Published: 2005

Rating: Average

"We were young. We were in love. ... We could not leave well enough alone."

If I were an evil overlord, my ultimate weakness would be puppies. That's how I got sucked into buying John Grogan's Marley & Me, the overhyped tale of "the world's worst dog" who's really no more than your typical American labrador retriever.

Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog is ultimately Grogan's biography during the years that he owned the dog. That's not to say that Marley isn't the major focus of the story--he is, but Grogan is prone to spending more than a few pages here and there focusing on things that have nothing to do with the dog.

There really isn't much to say in the way of summary: the Grogans decide to buy Marley from a backyard breeder and he gets into all sorts of trouble. He redeems himself by doing the noble things dogs do, such as comforting Grogan's wife after a miscarriage and guarding Grogan while the latter waits with a 17-year-old stabbing victim.

The book isn't dreck, but it's certainly overhyped. Anyone who's ever owned a dog will likely be entertained by Marley's antics, which certainly don't place him in the category of "world's worst dog"--he's simply a male labrador retriever with a few phobias and owners who were unprepared to handle a dog of his size and disposition. It's the story of a dog--a dog whose owner happened to be in a position to get a book published, but not a dog who deserves to be maligned for eternity as the worst dog, or even a bad dog.

Speaking of his owners: I have no doubt that Grogan loved his pooch dearly, but there were a few times I was utterly disgusted with Marley & Me, either because of the Grogans' treatment of the dog or because of the pleasure Grogan took in describing it. Reading about the use of a choke collar on a hyperactive 97-lb. labrador retriever made me wince, but Grogan's description of the noises that Marley made while straining against it were, among other things, unnecessary.

And then there is the incident where the Grogans move from Florida to Pennsylvania and decide that the best way to transport the dog would be to force him into a crate that's too small and convince the airline that, since Marley meets the FAA requirement of being able to stand up and turn around (nevermind that it's with great difficulty), he's okay to go on the flight. The dog spent the entire howling loud enough that everyone on the flight could hear him--something that should've pricked Grogan's conscious more than it did.

That I couldn't put it down is a testament to, among other things, the emotional manipulativeness of Marley & Me. When I wasn't horrified by the treatment of the dog, I laughed at some of his antics--after Grogan settles into his groove, his style is nicely comedic--and sobbed at the end when Marley was finally put to sleep.

That's what brought down the story to a great degree for me--you know sooner or later Marley's going to die. I guess that's one of the downsides of non-fiction, but Grogan never manages to imbue his story with enough charm to make you forget that Marley's not long for this earth.

Marley & Me is the sort of book you should grab at the library or preview on Amazon.com before you purchase. It's a cute story for the average pet owner, but that's all it is--a fellow pet owner telling you how why and how his dog is much cooler than yours, while constantly deriding the animal as dumb and defective. If you like dogs, you'll probably like the book; if you adore them, you'll be equal parts amused and horrified; and if you don't like dogs, you simply won't care enough to pick it up in the first place.

[Buy Marley & Me at Amazon.com] | [Buy John Grogan books at BookCloseouts.com]