Actual rating ★★.5

If this book was longer I would have DNF'd within the first 10 pages to be perfectly honest, this was a mission to get through. As a disclaimer though, this is not a genre I typically enjoy. I picked this book up years ago at a used bookstore because it sounded mildly interesting and was also only $3. It has sat on my shelf ever since because I knew as soon as I got home that I probably wouldn't enjoy it, but I finally made myself read it because one of my reading goals for the year is to actually read the books I have on my shelf. If not for that, I would never have picked this one up.

So what's going on here?
Hermes and Apollo walk into a bar (which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke lmfao) in Toronto one night, and wonder "what it would be like if animals had human intelligence." By the end of their conversation, a bet has been made and the pair find themselves in a veterinary clinic where they give the fifteen dogs staying there for the night human intelligence. What follows are the stories of said fifteen dogs throughout the remainder of their lives.

What I loved
I'll be honest, I didn't love much here. It was interesting enough that I managed to get myself through it, and I did find this book to be thought provoking. The dogs are seeing the human world, our world, in a whole new way, but still from the perspective of a dog of course. I found it interesting the ways they described and saw our world, the customs we have that don't make sense from an outside perspective, etc. It's not something I would have any desire to read again or anything, but I didn't completely hate it at least. And I did actually really like the poems. For some reason I decided to read the "note on the text" in the back before I was very far along, and found the info about the type of poetry it is to be fascinating. I had never head of that kind of poetry and had fun trying to find the dogs names within them.

What I didn't love
I think my main issue with this was the plot and pacing. When people have asked me if I prefer books that are plot driven or character driven, I've never known which I like better. Fifteen Dogs made me realize that I definitely prefer plot driven novels. I do really enjoy heavy focus on characters, and need good character development in order to feel any kind of connection to them, but I found Fifteen Dogs to take it too far. Maybe it was how it was written or the nature of the characters, but I found it be extremely difficult to connect with anyone in this story. I just didn't care, except maybe a tiny bit for Majnoun and Prince at the very end. The writing and dialogue felt very disconnected from any sort of emotion, which again may just be the nature of the characters as they don't experience emotion the same way humans do. But regardless it was difficult to read and enjoy. I think I would have liked it more if there was a bit of dark humour thrown in here and there, it felt like the right setting for it. But instead it was very dry and stale.

Overall thoughts
Not horrible, but I doubt I'll feel inclined to pick up anything else from this author or genre. I'm just very underwhelmed, but at least it was a quick read and I can finally take this off my TBR shelf