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The Art of Racing in the Pelting

By Garth Stein, A tearjerker about a race car driver and his domestic dog

By on Jul 24th, 2019 (Last Updated )

Brief Summary
Detailed Summary
Read it or Skip It?

I always plan on reading books before the movie comes out, just this time I really did it, yay! The flick adaptation of Garth Stein's The Art of Racing n the Rain is beingness released on Baronial 9th.

I love Marley & Me, some other movie nigh dogs and life (plus Jennifer Aniston is awesome in it), so I'm planning on seeing this one equally well. This isn't generally the type of book I like, but I thought I'd give this a shot anyway.

Plot Summary

For the Detailed Plot Summary, click hither or scroll all the way down.

The Art of Racing in the Rain is narrated by Enzo. Enzo is a canis familiaris who was adopted by a race motorcar driver, Denny. When the book opens, Enzo is near the terminate of his life. He narrates the story about his life with Denny, plus Denny'due south wife Eve and daughter Zoe, and everything that's happened in their time together.

It's a story about love, loss, triumphs, grief, family, hardships and of course racing.

See The Art of Racing in the Rain on Amazon.

Book Review

From the very first affiliate, the volume sets forth the uncomplicated, boundless love Enzo (the dog) has for Denny and the elementary, boundless love that Denny has for Enzo. You likewise find out that Eve, Denny's married woman, has passed away, so that should give you some sense of where there story is going.

I went into this knowing it would exist a little sappy and the domestic dog-narrator thing was as well contemporary for my tastes and mentally prepared myself to just let it go and enjoy the story. Merely the questionable aspects of this book went beyond all that, and they but kept piling upwards.

For starters, this book shot so far by merely beingness sappy that information technology started to edge into seeming emotionally manipulative.

From the sentimentality of a domestic dog-narrated story, to the dead married woman (this is not a spoiler, we detect this out in the kickoff few pages), to the patently unfair and outrageous situation that Denny finds himself in, to the ii-dimensional villains in the story, to the helpless little daughter whose but desire is to come across her dog and her father, to the highs and lows of automobile racing. The book isn't so much trying to tug at your heartstrings equally information technology is desperately yanking at them in a deranged fervor.

I also would've enjoyed the parts about racing more than, except in it insists on transforming most of those parts into metaphors for extremely trite life lessons and platitudes. Learning to anticipate movements in the car is turned into a truism about embracing your own destiny, that sort of matter. Or when the book (or rather, a philosophizing dog) makes the signal that in racing you have to go on going fifty-fifty when things become tough, only similar in life, it'south all so overwhelmingly obvious.

Instead of having whatsoever type of grapheme growth or depth (they're all two-dimensional static characters), the book just offers up cliché after cliché in terms of the characters, the plot and any type of insight it has to offer.

The plot contrivances in this book are numerous besides. For example, in that location's two fortuitous occurrences, both of which occur every bit nakedly Deus Ex Machina-esque events. In both instances, it'southward an overly convenient style for Denny to deal with certain problems. (If you've read the book, I'm referring to Lucca and the scene with the father.)

Also, I didn't go the point of the whole canis familiaris-narrator gimmick or why it was used for the story. At that place's a number of parts where it made no sense for him to characterize, like scenes in a hospital or a court. And, for a dog, he seems very concerned with women's breasts. Shouldn't he have an equal interest in male person reproductive parts? Funny how that works.

In that location's also some extremely problematic problems involving one of the plotlines. Most notably information technology perpetuates idea that women constantly lie almost sexual attack. I won't become into information technology, since I don't want to spoil anything, but that's probably what sealed this book'south fate for me.

Anyway, I told myself I'd say at least one nice thing, so I'll add together that the book is not without information technology'south charms. Even knowing I wasn't into it, there were a few parts that fabricated me grinning. When Enzo makes his opinion articulate by peeing all over a set of papers, I had to acknowledge that was a pretty practiced scene. I'm betting that (or some variation of it) ends upwardly in the movie.

If Enzo had spent more than fourth dimension doing stuff like that and less fourth dimension spouting truisms and ogling women's breasts, I probably would have had more than enthusiasm for this book.

The Fine art of Racing In the Pelting Movie Adaptation

As mentioned above, The Fine art of Racing In the Rain will be released in theaters on August ix, 2019. Milo Ventimiglia stars as Denny with Amanda Seyfried as Eve. You tin follow its reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.

When information technology comes to the movie, the affair I'yard about curious about is the girl who lies almost being assaulted. I'm curious if this ends upwardly in the film, since in a post-#metoo globe this narrative may non be received well. I approximate we'll discover out soon plenty.

art of racing in the rain

Read it or Skip it?

Clearly, I wasn't all that into The Art of Racing in the Pelting. Part of it was that I wasn't the right reader for this book, merely I also think many of the issues run deeper than that.

However, if you similar somewhat sentimental tearjerker-type books, you'll probably be able to see past a lot of the things that bugged me about this story.

For everyone else, I'd suggest just watching the movie. My guess is that the movie is going to be charming and round out a lot of things that I didn't like nearly the book. And so, even though I didn't honey the book, I know I'll be watching the movie at some point. Marley & Me is a movie that I admire, so I'm inclined to give this picture a gamble too.

Are yous guys going to be watching this movie, reading this book or none of the above? See The Art of Racing in the Rain on Amazon.

Detailed Book Summary (Spoilers)