I love dogs and I love books, so naturally, I enjoy dog books. That said, A Big Little Life was an outstanding dog book. I had not previously read anything by serial author Dean Koontz. Although, his books have always been on my radar, I just hadn’t taken the opportunity to pick one up. This book made me curious and I definitely plan to read something by Koontz in the future.
A Big Little Life is about Dean Koontz’s first dog, named Trixie. She is a larger-than-life, golden, who I now feel I have actually met in person, just by reading about her. Trixie helps Koontz with his writing and he shares in this book information about the fiction books that he is writing while owning Trixie, and how her influence pushed him to live bigger and take on more challenging writing projects.
Mr. Koontz does an amazing job describing Trixie’s personality and her preferences. A quote from the book that I absolutely loved is, “…there’s going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight, in her innocence, because you can’t support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There’s such a beauty to the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware if comes with an unbearable price.”
The Koontz’s pay an unbearable price, as do we all, in the end with our pets, but we are so much better for knowing and loving them. I feel like a better pet owner for having read about Trixie, her joy and her innocence. I highly recommend this book. ��