- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Puffin (4 Aug 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141327162
- ISBN-13: 978-0141327167
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 169,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
Praise for The Bride's Farewell: Masterful describes the whole of this narrative. Rosoff not only knows how to tell a tale, she is unashamed of telling it. (Write Away )
Praise for What I Was: Already a classic. (The Sunday Times )
Praise for What I Was: a book which will completely startle you in an awesomely crazy way with an utterly amazing flair. (Olivia, www.spinebreakers.co.uk )
Praise for What I Was: Already a classic. (The Sunday Times )
Praise for What I Was: a book which will completely startle you in an awesomely crazy way with an utterly amazing flair. (Olivia, www.spinebreakers.co.uk )
Review
Praise for The Bride's Farewell: Masterful describes the whole of this narrative. Rosoff not only knows how to tell a tale, she is unashamed of telling it. Write Away Praise for What I Was: Already a classic. The Sunday Times Praise for What I Was: a book which will completely startle you in an awesomely crazy way with an utterly amazing flair. Olivia, www.spinebreakers.co.uk
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When Mona wins the earth in a poker game, she gives the job of God to her 17 year old son Bob, who's feckless, careless, self-obsessed, lazy and sex-mad. Instead of thinking through creation, he throws it together in 6 days and has a lie-in on the seventh because it's all been a bit much. The results are left to Bob's assistant, Mr B. to deal with, helped and hindered by Bob's pet eck, Eck. Mr B. is a solid middle manager who'd been hoping to get the God job for himself. Eck is the last of his species - a penguiny creature with a prehensile nose and voracious appetite who has the best tasting meat in the universe.
Together they've managed to muddle through the millennia but cracks are beginning to show. The last thing they need is for Bob to fall in love with the beautiful and Christian Lucy because Bob's love affairs tend to end in fire and brimstone and this time, the earth can't take it ...
Meg Rosoff's novel is a funny, thought-provoking and satirical look at the world we live in that's ultimately very human. It would be a real shame if it got bogged down in anti-religion accusations because for me it's more about the importance of showing consideration and kindness and love to others than it is a polemic about God per se (although it isn't above poking fun at certain beliefs).
The characters are depicted in broad-brush strokes, but they're none the worse for that. Bob is something of an anti-hero, his occasional flashes of genius serving to make up for his whiny self-involvement. As the only teenager in the book, I wonder if there's enough there for YA readers to relate to - especially as there's a tongue in cheek approach to his dilemmas and issues. Mr B is a more staid character, aware that he's not making the difference he wants to make. The real star though is the unfortunate Eck, who stole every page for me - I loved the tiny hints as to his appearance and his growing sadness at realising he's not in control of his own life.
I'm not sure whether this is strictly speaking a YA book because there seems to be more there for adults, but it's still a thoroughly enjoyable read that had me chuckling every page.
Together they've managed to muddle through the millennia but cracks are beginning to show. The last thing they need is for Bob to fall in love with the beautiful and Christian Lucy because Bob's love affairs tend to end in fire and brimstone and this time, the earth can't take it ...
Meg Rosoff's novel is a funny, thought-provoking and satirical look at the world we live in that's ultimately very human. It would be a real shame if it got bogged down in anti-religion accusations because for me it's more about the importance of showing consideration and kindness and love to others than it is a polemic about God per se (although it isn't above poking fun at certain beliefs).
The characters are depicted in broad-brush strokes, but they're none the worse for that. Bob is something of an anti-hero, his occasional flashes of genius serving to make up for his whiny self-involvement. As the only teenager in the book, I wonder if there's enough there for YA readers to relate to - especially as there's a tongue in cheek approach to his dilemmas and issues. Mr B is a more staid character, aware that he's not making the difference he wants to make. The real star though is the unfortunate Eck, who stole every page for me - I loved the tiny hints as to his appearance and his growing sadness at realising he's not in control of his own life.
I'm not sure whether this is strictly speaking a YA book because there seems to be more there for adults, but it's still a thoroughly enjoyable read that had me chuckling every page.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
For a while i haven't been a big reader and anything my mum would try to get me to read i would reject immediately saying that it could not possibly live up to the Harry Potter series (the last books i read). However, i finally gave in and started to read Meg Rosoff's newest book "There Is No Dog". Before i started it, the concept of it made me slightly sceptical but after reading the first few hilarious lines i was hooked. I didn't leave my bed for a day while i was reading it and when i finished i had an empty feeling that i hadn't felt since finishing Harry Potter. All i can say is WOW.
OH. MY. DOG.
OH. MY. DOG.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am no longer - I once was but well before they had a name for it - a Y(oung) A(dult). But there's more to this disarmingly easy read than meets the eye. It is not just for kids. Meg Rosoff's new novel "There is no Dog" lingers long after you've digested the final optimistic paragraph.
Optimistic? Surely not? Oh, how very unfashionable. Well I say, hurrah for optimism. This is a book that does not preach to its intended young and (despite themselves) impressionable readership. It is not dressed up as polemic. Rather "There is no Dog" presents a beguilingly simple tale, embellished with some delightful surrealist imagery, a contemporary Greek Myth for our troubled times.
The narrative parades an assortment of fabulous individuals (not least the profoundly sympathetic, ultimate civil servant, Mr B; and who could ever forget the truly ghastly Mona, mother of God: a triumph!). Yet the novel's success lies in the philosophy that themes not characters, drive this moral tale.
Tackling troubling issues with her characteristic deft touch, Rosoff's ever-perceptive, distilled prose leaves her reader strangely eased. "There is no Dog" ponders life as a contradictory conundrum to which there is no real answer, whilst leaving you with a disquieting yet deeply reassuring sense that you now understand life a little better.
I already feel the need to read it again.
Optimistic? Surely not? Oh, how very unfashionable. Well I say, hurrah for optimism. This is a book that does not preach to its intended young and (despite themselves) impressionable readership. It is not dressed up as polemic. Rather "There is no Dog" presents a beguilingly simple tale, embellished with some delightful surrealist imagery, a contemporary Greek Myth for our troubled times.
The narrative parades an assortment of fabulous individuals (not least the profoundly sympathetic, ultimate civil servant, Mr B; and who could ever forget the truly ghastly Mona, mother of God: a triumph!). Yet the novel's success lies in the philosophy that themes not characters, drive this moral tale.
Tackling troubling issues with her characteristic deft touch, Rosoff's ever-perceptive, distilled prose leaves her reader strangely eased. "There is no Dog" ponders life as a contradictory conundrum to which there is no real answer, whilst leaving you with a disquieting yet deeply reassuring sense that you now understand life a little better.
I already feel the need to read it again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
who needs dogs when you have an Eck
The author has a wonderfully intriguing concept with the idea of God as a teenage boy, and all the catastrophies and relationship muddles that go with that. Read more
Published 1 month ago by P. Sherman
More than Seven Comets and Flying Fish
Meg Rosoff's latest book, There Is No Dog, deals with several complex themes and questions: the existence of God, Intelligent Design, extinction of the species, an anti-Leibnizian... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Shelley Souza
LRC
Books purchased for LRC (Library) at school and as far as i am aware are all ok with no problems.
Published 2 months ago by no
Imaginative and strange
This interesting teen book asks what if God were a selfish, lazy 16 year old boy? Bob got the job of God because no one else wanted it, Earth wasn't a glamourous project and no one... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Cathy Hill
Brilliant hilarious read
Got this for Christmas, read it in one day and laughed all the way through. Written in a quirky manner where view points often change mid-sentence, humans are mixed in with gods,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by bigdaddy
Seriously original; funny and dramatic
I felt like this book is going to be one of those taboo tales that gets passed around between school kids and referenced by teachers in years to come because the subject matter is... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Sisterspooky
Not a Dog
Interesting and unusual novel. The word "dog" is an anagram and there is a certain amount of criticism of religion in the story but nothing much that will offend anyone. Read more
Published 7 months ago by C. Bulman
It was okay...
I originally wanted to read this book for my British Books Challenge with Meg Rosoff being an award winning British writer. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jess Hearts Books
one of my books of the year
This may well be the kind of novel some will loathe and others love, but whatever else it does it makes you laugh and think. Read more
Published 7 months ago by A. Craig
a breath of fresh air
This book sticks to the reader like goose grass. Four months after getting to the end I still haven't finished it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by march hare
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