There Is No Dog Review

There Is No Dog
by Meg Rosoff
From Goodreads:

Meet your unforgettable protagonist: God, who, as it turns out, is a 19-year-old boy living in the present-day and sharing an apartment with his long-suffering fifty-something personal assistant. Unfortunately for the planet, God is lazy and, frankly, hopeless. He created all of the world's species in six days because he couldn't summon the energy to work for longer. He gets Africa and America mixed up. And his beleagured assistant has his work cut out for him when God creates a near-apolcalyptic flood, having fallen asleep without turning the bath off. There is No Dog is a darkly funny novel from one of our most delightfully unpredictable writers.

My Thoughts:  Bob is a teenage boy in love.  He's also God.  His being in love is a very bad thing for humans, because his usual detachment from the human world is gone and we are left with a very emotional teen going through the ups and downs of puppy love.  Floods and famine commencing now.

"The transformation from needy teenager to weapon of mass destruction is nearly complete."

Lucy is the human that's caught God's attention, but she's got problems of her own with Luke, her boss, who seems to hate her.  Lucy is immediately drawn to Bob, unaware that's he's God but overwhelmed by his otherness.  Human lovers of Bob tend to do poorly- remember all those Greek myths?  Yup, that was Bob doing all the chasing of fair Greek maidens and getting them into all sorts of trouble when he wasn't busy bringing plague to the lands when his love affairs don't work out.

Then there's Mr. B, God's long suffering assistant and the only that's really trying to solve all of our problems.  Mr. B would make a wonderful God, but Bob's flighty mom, Mona, won our corner of the universe in a bet and gave it to her whiny brat of a son.  Mr. B's planning a way out, but he's upset at the prospect of leaving his beloved whales behind, and distracted by the destruction Bob's crush is causing on earth. 

My favorite characters in the book were Estelle and the Eck.  There Is No Dog is pretty light in the character development, but Estelle's a strong young immortal, determined to save Eck from Bob and Mona's carelessness.  The Eck is a penguin type creature who has been ill used by Bob- think of a spoiled child and a loyal, beaten dog.  Estelle trying to figure out a way to get Eck out of a particularly awful dilemma- thanks to Mona and Bob, is easily my favorite part of the book.


There Is No Dog is not for everyone, it pokes fun at religion- the title is a bit of a giveaway so if you find that offensive then you probably want to skip the book.  And although it's a YA book, Bob is the only teenage character.  Lucy is 20 or 21, and everyone else is older than that.  Because the book is about a horny teenage god, there's also some sexual scenes- mostly Bob's daydreams. 

My biggest problem with the book is that it just tries a bit too hard to achieve a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy irreverence and it just doesn't hit the mark. It's full of snark and humor, but there's no real depth to the characters.  I'm not a particular fan of teenagers, but I would give them more credit than Rosoff does to Bob- he has all the negative teenage boy characteristics, but doesn't seem to have upside to his personality.  Teens, in my opinion, are a bit schizo, I don't find it realistic that Bob wouldn't have some good qualities. 

But because I still enjoyed the book, There Is No Dog gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

Disclaimer: I read this book as part of the Around The World ARC Tours, and briefly received a copy to read and give an honest review of before sending it on to the next blogger.