Dog

Umm going into this I was not expecting what happened. This book is supposedly a children's book, but is so grim and depressing that I was often very shocked. I am above the recommended age, so I was able to deal with the dark themes of this book, but I don't know if a younger me would've. I think as a child, this book would've upset me a lot. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but that is from the perspective of a teen rather than a child.

I spent most of this book thinking, ‘why am I reading this?'. This book was just so dark, so depressing, that I lost the point of it. What's the point of a book if everyone dies?? I get that there can be lessons to learn from it, such as with Romeo and Juliet, but this just felt sad with no redemption. But the ending makes it better.

The characters of this book are a mixture. There are a lot of characters I don't like, such as Thread and Moonlight, who are able to get away with their manipulation and mistreatment of Spider. At least by the end Thread frees the moth in his web to go back to his partner. I was honestly quite surprised as the rest of this book had been so grim with no apology that I was not expecting the moth to be freed, so it was a nice surprise.
Buster and the Flea were nice additions to this story who also unexpectedly didn't die! I found the whole scene with Spider being taken to be dog food a bit extreme, however.
I think characters like Jesse were, at least for the reading age, a bit innapropriate to include. Not that Jesse the fox was inherently a bad character, just that her death was very violent and upsetting. Even I was shocked and horrified by her death, so I wouldn't like to think how a young child would react.

I took about 4 or 5 years to read this book. Not that I was reading it that entire time, but I bought it and read maybe the first chapter or two and then left it for years and years. And I am so glad I did. This is not a book I should have read when I was a little child. It deals with concepts like manipulation, abandonment, ableism, cannibalism, violence, severe bullying, and more.

TLDR: This is a good book and I recommend reading it but not at the recommended age because I found it very upsetting at times.