What readers think of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, plus links to write your own review.

I felt the book turned into a let's admire the author's use of language, the turn of one more lyrical phrase (how does he do it) and the use of all those embedded stories along the way: a transition tale, a bucolic tale, a dog lover's dream story; a boy who has no voice, a dog who gives him voice. It was a wonderful idea but the story was over the top and an insult to a reader who was lured into the dynamics of the story; the foreboding, the danger, the parallels to tragic figures, the transcendence. The dogs were developed in their character; Edgar was well developed; however, the rest of the family was not explored and it left the reader burned. Because Gar, Claude and Trudy and the other characters lacked an internal development, the wild gratuitous ending which was coming and coming for 100s of pages lost all significance and was experienced as an insult to our attachments to Edgar, the dogs and our energies in reading the book to begin with.

I have to concur with Judy. The 1st half of the book showed great promise, but I found the ending to be rather abrupt and truly lacking. Far too many questions were left unanswered and the book had a dismal ending. Like everyone, my time is precious; so to invest one's time in reading a noveI there comes an anticipation of being satisfied and well pleased with the ending. I finished this book feeling cheated and even a little bit angry; angry that my investment of time had resulted in such a dreadful ending. A real disappointment to say the least. It's doubtful I will ever read any other works by this author. Sorry David.

You know, after the intro and then first few chapters, there was something very familiar going on in this novel. Then I caught on! Author was utilizing character names and tenor and basic plot of Willie S's famous tale about the Prince of Denmark. It was relatively easy to predict what would occur in terms of story-line. To be honest, I thought that this "borrowing" was a bit cheesy. I do have to offer kudos for the author's knowledge of dogs, canine behaviors and motivations though. They were the true surprises of this freshman novel.

It is very rare for me to not finish a book but occasionally I say to myself "there are so many great books out there and so little time why should I waste it reading a book that is not interesting me at all". The characters were quite boring and I found I could not really care about them, the storyline was interesting but the telling of it was long winded. Perhaps you need to be American to appreciate it.

This book had so much buzz and I spent the greater part of a year trying to get it at 2 libraries. Well, after finally sitting down the book, I spent 2 days of enjoyable reading. Then came the last chapter and I was MOST disappointed and even confused. Why would the author leave his story without closure? Are the readers to make up their own conclusion? I was angry and told a host of friends that are dog lovers not to read it. I will not look for this author again. I am happy to see other negative reviews; that helps a bit!

Ugh!!!! I have enjoyed this book for many hours. I even got a couple of snow days to just sit and travel with Edgar, the story's main character. While Wroblewski is truly one of the most gifted writers I've ever read, I can't endorse this book because of the HOPELESS ending. This evil antagonist is virtually just left in the end without any closure!!!!! I don't like that. He caused so much grief and then to not answer for any of it, is just unacceptable. Wroblewski, what were you thinking??? With all due respect, everything about this book was great except the ending. I must add that is was the absolute WORST ending to a book I have ever read. I will never trust you again. You can write as many sequels as you want, but I want give you my hours and nights and afternoons, never again.

I enjoyed the depth of the relationship between Edgar and his beloved dogs. It was very well written and insightful - it made me think. Like many others have said though, the end was a huge disappointment that left me feeling unsatisfied and angry! It seemed like the author forgot to write the last few chapters of the book. I actually made up a different ending in my head just to stop my mind reeling with so many questions.

As I write this I have just finished the book not twenty minutes ago. I suffered through the last 250 pages and I am so glad that it is done. I expected that the ending would be disappointing as it would match the rest of the book. The author just rattles on in an attempt to create a scene but it comes across as trying way to hard to weave words instead of building characters. There is nothing bringing the story together...just several random meaningless mini-tales. I would say that the only moment that I felt something at all was when Edgar discovers his father dead. On the other hand, the entire waterspout storm scene was easily the worst segment of the book being truly painful to read. To sum up, I felt no attachment to the characters and did not see anything special about being a Sawtelle Dog. I am certainly shocked to see these glowing reviews and find it hard to believe that those people read the same book as I did.