I found the writing style of Lives of the Monster Dogs to be as entertaining as it was frustrating - I enjoyed the various styles that were explored, interviews, diaries, even an opera, but found the characters themselves (particularly Cleo) to be annoying and flat. The most interesting aspect of the story was the 'historical' bits of the story of the 'Father of Monster Dogs', Augustus Rank - while disturbing, I was more invested in his history than I was of the present day (again, mostly because of Cleo's lack of reaction to literally everything going on around her..).

I was finally starting to be interested in the present day when the story abruptly ended with zero resolution. I don't mind an open-ended conclusion but it should also feel like an ending and not just like I was missing pages.