Powerful Examination Of Grief. Look, if I can read this book while staring down my wife’s major heart surgery in less than two weeks while also dealing with my dad living in congestive heart failure for a couple of years now while also having a very old cat… you can read this powerful story of loss and love and finding yourself through your grief too. Yes, you too may be a bit delayed by all of the above and more, or your particular variant thereof, but you can absolutely make it through this book. Indeed, I would go so far as to say you *need* to make it through this book. Because this Autism Acceptance Month, let this Autistic tell you something about our experience: We read as much to learn about the human condition and to prepare our minds to handle different situations and emotions almost as for any other reason – at least some of us. (And maybe even just me – I tend to be so hyper rare as to possibly be unique even among billions of people in so many ways, and maybe this is one of them.)
There is a major spoiler for the epilogue of this book that at least some of you will want to know up front – but it *is* a major spoiler that could alter how other readers approach the book or even whether they give the book a chance at all. So here’s how I’m going to handle this: There will be a paragraph deeper in the review where I will explicitly say that I am going to reveal the spoiler in that exact paragraph, and then I’m going to bury the spoiler in the middle of a lot of reasonable sounding text such that your eye isn’t immediately drawn to it. That way, those who want to see the spoiler can still read that paragraph, but that paragraph won’t stand out to other readers as anything exceptional in any way.
Some, including at least one author I’ve read that knows how to create some very dusty rooms herself, have called this Pagan’s best work yet… and I’m likely to agree with them. The rare perspective on this love story – Pagan’s clear preferred term – that is actually a romance with deep tragic elements – it does in fact meet all known RWA/ RNA requirements, for the couple at hand at minimum, though it may be argued that it meets them in a similar manner as Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse being technically the best romance novel I’ve ever read does. In other words, *I* think the marketing on this book should clearly be as a romance, for a lot of different reasons, but I can also see booklandia in an uproar about that and Pagan and her team choosing to thus be more than touch conservative there.
Which is a bit of irony, as we get into the “these things are in the book” section. First, there are a pair of LGBT romances, both MM and FF, though these are more in passing than actually developed in the story itself. But they exist, and as I noted above, I know some will *love* this book for their presence and others… will choose to skip this book over it. Again, you do you. No judgment from this reader either way there. I will note that even with two of them present at all here, since there is a secondary romance that is fleshed out more than the two LGBT romances but less than our central romance, eh, it actually evens out. Thus, I really do think you should read this book anyway, no matter your thoughts on this topic.
Speaking of that second non-LGBT romance, that is the closest to any level of spice we get, and while it may be *slightly* hotter than a warm glass of milk, it is more akin to an eggnog or perhaps horchata. Note that we’re still not getting anywhere near even mild peppers here, and in fact the scene I’m thinking of is actually one I experienced a version of back when I worked with my church’s bus ministry as a teen. I was walking through a large trailer park on our route when I came across a kid locked out of their trailer. As I’m talking to this kid, I hear a frequent hammering sound. Clearly some kind of book case was being built in this trailer. 😉 Then it dawned on me, and I told the kid they may want to go find a friend to hang out with for a bit and walked away. And that tale shows you pretty well exactly how spicy this book gets. Again, some won’t want to experience even that level of spice in a tale, while others may find that such a mild spice isn’t enough for them. Either way, you do you, but please, if you choose to read this book anyway – and as I said in the title, I believe you should! – please don’t lower your star rating because this was too much or too little for you. That is a you thing, not an actually objective-ish reason to deduct a star. Discuss it in your review, as I’ve done here, and tell us all about why you think it was too much or too little. Just don’t dock a star over it, please. 🙂
The final “this thing was present” thing is the repeated use of “herstory” rather than “history”, furthering the myth that the etymology of “history” has any kind of male bias. Indeed, its earliest meanings simply meant “inquiry”, no matter who was doing the inquiring, and for centuries from the Greeks to the Romans and then the early French, the word was actually *feminine* within the language – “historia” in both Greek and Latin, and “histoire” in French. “Herstory” was actually developed as a neologism and pun barely 50 yrs ago during the heart of Second Wave feminism among the activist/ scholar set. So yes, for those with a modern activist feminist bent, perhaps you’ll appreciate that this neologism is used rather than the anciently feminine term. Others will find it perhaps a touch annoying, and at least a few will want to avoid this book knowing it is present at all. Again I stress: Read. This. Book. Anyway.
Even the “intolerance of the intolerant” – a concept I first saw argued most successfully in fiction in the late 90s in Frank Peretti’s The Prophet – is only really slightly more than a footnote here. Yes, the “intolerant” are absolutely used as foils to our heroes and yes, it drives the heroes in certain key ways and shows up at least a few times more than once, but again, it is more that “annoyance” level for some readers (that others even more insistent in their views will likely again want to defenestrate the book over) that still others will absolutely love this book for that very thing. Again: Read. This. Book. Anyway.
Remember earlier when I warned you that there would be a spoiler paragraph deep within the text of this review? Welcome to that paragraph. Those who do not want a major plot point spoiled should leave this paragraph now and simply pick up reading the next paragraph of this review. I guarantee you that after this paragraph we go back to minor-at-best and no-specifics discussions of the text. But I’m warning you right now one final time, the spoiler is coming up soon. You should skip to the next paragraph right now if you want to avoid it. Now, for those who want to know what the big spoiler is, well, the dog dies in the epilogue. That’s it. That’s the big spoiler. I’ll say no more about it, I’m just continuing this paragraph for a bit just to make sure it is well and truly buried within this paragraph such that it is as easily skippable as I can make a pure text review and in fact more skippable than many content warnings placed before the story begins in an eBook. Authors should place such content warnings on their websites instead, as in that manner those who want such warnings can easily find them and those who don’t can more easily skip them. It also allows the author the opportunity to update the list as societal preferences and tolerances change. I think this is sufficient for burying the spoiler, so now we’re moving back to the main text of the review.
There is no way to avoid dusty rooms in this book. They start early and only through the movement of the plot do we ever rise above them… yet with the dust hanging around chest level, just enough room for us to breathe a bit more clearly while doing the things we must. Grief and moving on is absolutely essential to this book, as well as love and community. There is a lot of bookstore commentary, particularly on the business side, and indeed at least some of the arguments that frequently go back and forth among booklandia and some of its subsets are present here as well – and they all combine both to help us all handle the grief and to work our way through it.
I’ve read a few books over the years that tackled grief and trying to do the best you can to move through it to varying degrees of success. To my mind, this is absolutely up there on the better end of that range. Maybe not approaching Without Remorse – but it also doesn’t have anywhere near the bodycount or baddassery… or the graphic and brutal violence (sexual and otherwise) of that particular tale. Still, of all the books I’m thinking of on this list from my direct experience, I really do think I would put this easily in the top 5 most powerful of its type, and thus why I keep telling you to read this book anyway, even if it has things that would otherwise annoy you, and yes, even with the events of the epilogue that will leave you utterly bawling as you close this book.
No matter where you are in life right now, this is absolutely one of those books that will come in handy at some point as you begin to get your mind ready for unfathomable tragedy that unfortunately strikes us all at some point in our lives, or perhaps the tragedy has already hit and you’re looking for your path out. I genuinely believe this is one of those books that can help in that situation as well.
Very much recommended.
This review of Dog Person by Camille Pagan was originally written on April 13, 2026.
