The Dust of 100 Dogs

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, just not a lot of reviewing ... I'm utterly exhausted from all the work I've been doing on my vacation (actually, I'm just lazy, sarcasm doesn't travel well via internet), but I'll try to get a few reviews up today and maybe a couple more by the end of the week.

When I first started this book, I really didn't know what to think.  I actually stopped a few pages in like, six times, mostly because of how different this book is from A.S. King's other book, Please Ignore Vera Dietz.  I absolutely fell in love with PIVD and will definitely be reviewing that soon, and when I heard Ms. King had other books, naturally I ran to Amazon.com to buy them.  The Dust of 100 Dogs is different mainly because of the opener - lots more cussing, and it starts out with everybody dying.  Fun stuff.

Emer is a little Irish girl who's been thrown into the big, bad world of a few centuries ago.  Separated from her true love by her parents and a violent war, she has to fight - not just for her rights - but for her life.  Turning to piracy to find respect in a male-dominated world, she faces many challenges until she is ultimately cursed by her arch-enemy of decades to live as one hundred dogs until she is reincarnated as a human.  Very interesting premise, and thankfully, it's executed just as well.  Interspersed with some decidedly-preachy tidbits about dogs and concluding with a deus ex machina (never great), this book nonetheless stands up to its author's other works.

Hungry Lionel gives this:

4/5