Writing style
Conversational · Direct
Apple BooksA Dog's Purpose
Fantasy
- First published
- 2010
- Print length
- 323 pagesForge, 2017
Description
A dog narrates four successive lives while trying to understand what purpose binds his repeated returns to the world. His first begins as a feral puppy and leads to confinement in a shelter called the Yard. Reborn as Bailey, he becomes the devoted companion of a boy named Ethan, sharing his adolescence, family upheaval, injuries, and eventual separation. In another life, as search-and-rescue dog Ellie, he works with police and helps search for a kidnapped girl. Each existence gives the narrator a different human bond and form of service. Told through an earnest canine perspective, the novel uses reincarnation to explore loyalty, loss, work, and the meaning a life acquires through caring for others.
Reading profile
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Pace
Moderate
Tone
Earnest · Hopeful · Melancholic · Warm
Structure
Circular · Episodic · Linear
Focus
Character · Relationships
Emotional intensity
4 / 5
Reading complexity
1–5 · higher means more demanding- Writing
- 2 / 5
- Ideas
- 2 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
Themes
Book details
For the print edition listed above.
- Publisher
- Forge
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780765388100
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