I -hated- this. I made it 82 pages into it and so far the stratification of class was vaguely interesting, since it’s about a kid who is very poor and really wants two hound dogs so he can go hunt some coons. He gets treated poorly by the town folk because of his clothes and manner and what not, and I identified with that. My mom would make us our clothes and we got teased. And then it turns into him training the hounds up and desperately wanting to go kill coons.

It’s just so… stupid to me? I mean I’m sure catching the coons would help out the poor family to some degree. Pelts and meat and all that, but it turns into didactic, heavy-handed lessons at every turn coupled with plot beats I do not care about at all. It’s hyper masculine and coaches this faux tenderness with his crying about nearly everything, but everything. He comes across as selfish not tender.

We grew up poor and couldn’t have pets, so I’m obviously missing the animal attachment thing that comes with that early life development. You’d think I’d identify more with a kid who can’t have a pet. But I just don’t care that you don’t have a pet, man. Your family is living hand-to-mouth. Stop being an asshole, adding stress on top of that just because you want dogs. And it has to be two! I don’t care that you want to kill something and now you gotta show perseverance to chop a tree down because a coons up there and your dogs won’t respect you otherwise. You can Fuck right off, Billy.