How to review this book? I’ve been puzzling over my thoughts for a while now. While reading THE DUST OF 100 DOGS, I periodically shouted to my roommate and visiting friends, “This book is cracked out! You’ve got to read it!” (While of course keeping the book all to myself so I could finish it first.) To clarify, my friends and I usually use “cracked out” to describe something amazingly creative or surprisingly funny. (Yes, not really the urbandictionary.com definition.) And I think my definition definitely applies to this book. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was whipped along through a story that kept me guessing until the end. And most of my guesses were wrong, until, say, the last 20 pages or so, when I started to say, “Oh. Oh!” and realized just how cleverly A. S. King tied everything together.
Saying this book is about pirates, dogs, and a former terror of the seas reincarnated as a teenage girl looking for her treasure would flatten the rich depth of this book. So much story happens throughout the book, with many plot threads interwoven in both past and present times. During the first third of the book, I did squint at the pages a little suspiciously, wondering if it was such a good idea to have so many things going on at the same time, but King pulls it off, and pulls it off well. She has a real knack for getting into the heads of characters ranging from a brave little girl in Ireland to a long-suffering Doberman with a nasty owner.
Also, King has a knack for making the more extraordinary scenes feel really real, sometimes in squeamish detail. I winced at some of the bloodiest descriptions. But hey, it is a pirate book. I will warn those who think younger readers shouldn’t read about sex and gore, since both appear in this book. I found these scenes tastefully handled, though sometimes rather adult. Definitely upper YA, with crossover appeal.
Overall, a breathtakingly creative book. I’ve never read anything like it before. I will probably be reading it again soon, now that I know how it ends, just to see how it all fit together.
Disclaimer: My debut novel will be coming out from the same publisher next year, but rest assured, my honesty (or at least a healthy dose of sarcasm) should remain intact throughout this review.
