I’m a proud and vocal book abandoner. If, after giving it the official John Irving try (reading 100 pages in hopes the story gets going named after Irving because A Prayer for Owen Meany takes forever to get going), I’m not enjoying a book I set it aside without a second thought. This is why I don’t often write negative book reviews. Sometimes, though, I will struggle through a book because of some other obligation. Usually that means Rock & Roll Bookclub, and still even then I’ve been known to abandon books that are too bad to read (*cough*A Boy Called Freebird*cough*).

This is why I finished Antonya Nelson’s Bound even though I really didn’t want to.

Right from page one, I had my reservations. The book opens in the point of view of a dog who has just survived a car crash that’s killed its owner. We spend a lot of time with the dog, meeting characters who don’t seem to have any impact on the story. When we finally get to the humans the third-person point of view is so far removed, the book feels cold.

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