Fifteen Dogs, by Andre Alexis is a book that was gifted to me and I'm so pleased it was, because I might not have picked it up otherwise ... although I do love dogs, so perhaps it would have eventually found its way to me by another route. Anyhow, no matter how it reached me, I'm very happy! The gods Hermes and Apollo are in a bar, arguing about what would happen if animals had human intelligence. Apollo bets that this would result in the animals being even unhappier than humans - and Hermes takes on the bet that if only one of the animals dies happy, then he wins. And so, as they pass a local veterinary clinic, they give the 15 dogs inside human intelligence. Now capable of human thought, the dogs escape and become a pack in a local park. Some do not adapt and die very quickly, others embrace their new life and start spouting poetry, and others want to reimpose dogginess onto the pack and stage a violent coup. We then follow the survivors - one of whom is taken in by a couple and he becomes very close the the woman ... and even learns to converse with her. But when the dog meets one of his former pack, things do not end well. Often heartbreaking, but also sprinkled with humour, this is a really interesting and absorbing read and is definitely a "what if ..." type of book. The characters are distinct and are an intriguing mix of human and dog. The only reason I didn't give this five stars was that it was a little bitty - I think I would have liked there to be less dogs overall, and then to be able to spend more time with each of them. Some dogs appeared and were gone in the blink of an eye ... which, I suppose is a reflection of "fate" ... we never know what's around the corner! This had a beautiful cover and the edition I read felt lovely in the hand. Do any of the dogs die happy? Well, you'll just have to read to find out.
My STAR rating: FOUR.
Length: 161 print pages.
Price I paid: Free, was a gift.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.
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