Story blurb:
This No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller tells the heart-warming tale of how a wiggly yellow fur ball of a puppy could grow into a barrelling, ninety-seven pound stramroller of a Labrador retriever who would prove that unconditional love comes in many forms.
John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Along comes Marley, mischievous, hyperactive and so unruly he is expelled from obedience school. How could they possibly know that this incorrigible dog could teach them more about love for life than they could hope to teach him?
I actually saw the movie first before I decided to read the book. The film made me absolutely sob and it is my go to movie if I ever need a good cry. I found the film to be very similar to the book, but the book did have a lot more of the personal insight into John Grogan’s life and his life with Marley.
To start with this book is an autobiography, which I do enjoy every now and again. Whilst the book does focus on Marley and how he was the ‘world’s worst dog’, it is more a story of how Marley came into John’s life and how this impacted on his life. I found John’s account of his life to be very honest (or at least as far as I can tell – I don’t actually know the man) and he does discuss some very heavy topics, including the loss of a pregnancy and violent crimes in neighbourhoods he has lived. But at every stage, there was Marley.
As a hobbyist writer, I also enjoyed seeing what life is like for a professional writer. John Grogan is a columnist writer, and it was interesting to have that insight into the industry and how he dealt with writer’s block, especially since this led to him writing a column for his newspaper about life with Marley. It was really what inspired the book as a whole. I also have to say that John Grogan is a hilarious writer – very rarely does a book truly make me laugh out loud whilst reading but this one had me in hysterics. John has quite a dry sense of humour (as do I) and yet he also puts so much love into his stories about just how wild a dog Marley was.
The biggest spoiler of this book (and if you have seen the movie, you already know) but this is a story about the life of Marley, so unfortunately the book does end with Marley’s death. One of the harshest truths about living with companion animals is that we will almost always outlive them, and that pain could absolutely be felt through the pages during this. Needless to say, I sobbed. But what I did find a really lovely addition, is that the book doesn’t end with Marley’s death. There is a little section after where John talks about what happened after Marley’s death, most notably the amount of people who wrote to him at his work to thank him for sharing Marley with them, and highlighting just how loved Marley was by strangers across the world who read about him in John’s column. It was a lovely tribute to Marley’s legacy and, yet again, I absolutely sobbed whilst reading all of the different comments John received.
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