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The Bargain Nexus - Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
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List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $6.50
Your Save: $ 7.45 ( 53% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.7527092
EAN: 9780060817091
ISBN: 0060817097
Label: Harper Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-03-01
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release Date: 2008-03-11
Studio: Harper Paperbacks
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Meh
Comment: Having raised several Labradors from puppyhood to senescence, I was quite taken by Marley's hilarious and ultimately tragic tale. Grogan perfectly describes the incredible stubbornness and insanity of a Labrador's temperament. As for the rest of the book: I'm sure in the author's mind, the story of the his marriage/family/career is inseparable from the story of his dog, but... it was totally self-absorbed and utterly banal. His thoughts on mortality and the legacy of 9/11 were one of the most trite, sentimental, unoriginal things I have ever read. He'd do well writing for the NYPost.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not exactly running to finish it...
Comment: My cherished Rottweiler that I had since I was an adolescent died right before her 12th birthday. Unlike Grogan, she was always in the care of an adoring family member when I traveled. I brought her home to pass away in my arms rather than leaving her in a clinic after spending close to $3,000 I didn't have to give her a comfortable natural death surrounded by those who loved her. Thinking I could use some comfort and some insight into the Labrador breed, since I brought 2 Lab sibling puppies into my home a few months before, I decided to buy a copy of this book.
Let's put it this way. My 2 lab puppies were left for dead in a small Texas town on the side of a highway. They were infested with parasites, showed signs of being beaten, starving to death, and nearly feral. Despite this adversity, these are two very loving, well-trained creatures. With minimal training and me holding a full-time job, mind you. This dog was beyond neurotic...and I wonder if it's really the dog that is to blame? Garage banishment, babies running around all over the place, a high-strung wife having miscarriages, and the author just like "ok, whatever, bad Marley, bad!" These are highly perceptive creatures sensitive to the world around them...I would be neurotic too!
They should call this book "Marley and Me: a Trying to Conceive Journey." I am a single female surrounded by many women my age who seem to want to do nothing more than to have babies. If I wanted to have babies, I'd go very well ahead and start trying to have a baby, and get books specifically to help me in that purpose. What sort of uncouth individual, and what self-respecting wife, tolerates her husband providing intimate details about their copulatory habits? I started feeling vomit in the side of my mouth at some points.
I grow ill with the way that these folks with these entitled lives (getting up at 9am for a workday to read the newspaper? must be nice!) think they have to inundate us with every little detail of their screwed up personal lives and then they can just call it a "memoir." This dog was seriously wronged by its owners. Just because you're upper middle class and behave "mainstream" does not entitle you to abuse others, whether two legged or four legged. We are all different, some of us are a little more neurotic than others, but when you get a dog, you choose to accept that dog for who it is and what it stands for in your life.
Just my two cents.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very funny but so, so sad
Comment: Lots of cute and funny stories about Marley. Yes, the author is a little self-serving and there really is no introspection here (unless you count what Marley's doing - he's the most insightful character in the book, but maybe that's a good thing). I laughed out loud a lot. I also resolved never to get a Lab. I sobbed my eyes out towards the end of the book - I don't even think I've ever cried before while reading a book, much less sobbed. I actually took off a point for that - it's just too heartbreaking - and for the long-winded ending. I can recommend the book with reservations - if you are OK with being just as sad at parts as you are happy at others, go for it. But if you are looking for light-hearted escapism, choose something else.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just Awful
Comment: I started out hoping for some kind of drama, eventually, but the sickening sweetness was unrelenting. Combined with the fact these people had no business owning a large, strong working-breed dog. Gosh, the trouble they got themselves into -- how cute! Still cute. Forever cute. I started to flip through it. Then just flipped to the end. Started disgusted with the owners for one reason, wound up more disgusted for another. If you know anything at all about dogs, do not buy this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Someone ring John Grogan out ...
Comment: ... because he's really self-absorbed!
There's nothing more I hate in a memoir than the author thinking that their little personal stories are truly unique and memorable, when in reality, they're very common and not at all interesting.
What gets me about this book was that there was nothing in it that was at all triumphant, well-worded or interesting. The Grogan's family experiences with Marley were above average in difficulty, but hell, welcome to the life of being a dog-owner. They partially brought his behavior on themselves with their total lack of boundaries and training in his puppy life. They immediately let this dog rampage their house and get away with everything, and had they been more strict, he probably would have been a normal Lab. That's the first rule of having a dog: You show them who's boss from day one. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grogan kids are little terrors, and the family probably thinks they're just being "cute."
There's was never a point in this book where I felt much emotion. Maybe at the end at the demise of little Marley (but who doesn't get choked up when a family pet dies?). But Grogan's writing style was almost juvenile and his wording of situations was far from thought-provoking or even ... good. The Marley Mambo? Really? You think this makes me laugh? And his descriptions of situations goes on and on ... the guys doesn't know how to shut up. It's that self-absorption thing ... he must think we're all extremely interested in his wife's miscarriage, when reality is, women go through it ever day.
Grogan had great material to work with here, but he didn't put a new or interesting spin on any of it. Instead he took the easy way out and simply reported. And as a college Journalism major, I'm surprised he's been able to make a career out of it.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Now with photos and new material
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