I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley and the author.

This story is bonkers! In good ways and also some quite strange ones.
The premise for this is incredible and the plot is very original: our main character, Sydney, who is struggling with the home and school life, alienated from her PTSD-suffering father, encounters (the best piece of) magical realism and turns into a dog in the literal "be-careful-what-you-wish-for". From there, the story follows her journey to find her human form again and grow along the way. While the basic formula is a classic middle-grade concept, Sydney's path to arrive there certainly is not. My biggest praise for this story is 100% originality!
With themes of PTSD, bullying, a strained family life, animal treatment, and then love and kindness (and dogs!) this story hits hard and gets dark often.
Sydney is a compelling character and a believable narrator and heroine. The other characters were well-fleshed out and understandably flawed.
My main criticism for this would be the writing style that, even for a middle-grade, seems over-simplistic.
Also... that romance storyline between the dog and the cat (yeah you read that) was just... beyond words weird.

#netgalley #sydneyporterdoggirl