A Year of Cats and Dogs Book

This book was forgettable overall; the main character, Maryanne, is like a blank-faced proxy of either the author or the intended readership or both, and seems to passively observe her way through the events of the book without ever being shaken from her neutral state. There is no strong emotion to connect the reader to her. Things are observed and stated matter-of-factly, and her actions are offered as objective narrative with not much interpretation of her thought process or motivations. [return][return]Other characters, while more finely illustrated and much more emotionally interesting, are otherwise unpredictable and unbalanced. I felt I couldn't get a read on them as they didn't behave as believable people with consistent personalities.[return][return]The book's framing under the various sets of the I Ching is a mystery as well, and ended up feeling like an empty gimmick; often the chapters' contents had very little relation to the I Ching statements heading each one. Whether or not that was the intention I'm not sure, but I had expected more of a connection. The main character throws the I Ching herself a few times but never again after the midpoint of the book; it seems like a token gesture to try to tie the book to the texts more.[return][return]The whole book felt very disjointed and honestly rather pointless. Nothing is really learned by Maryanne; even an attempt at an emotional climax by having her boyfriend demand she find meaning in her life is never addressed again, and the reader gets no sense that Maryanne gained any more or less insight into her life. Unfortunate as the framing for the story was interesting and a lot more depth could have been infused into its pages.