The art of racing in the rain

Hello again friends

As promised here is my thoughts on the only book I've "read" recently that doesn't fit the memoir category The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein(I dont know that audio books truly count as reading but I dont know what other verbiage to use... absorbing?  I digress. .)
My friend at work suggested this book to me for a while before I finally decided to read it. I am notoriously against reading any books about dogs ever because inevitably something happens to the dog and it hurts my soul as I like most dogs better than I like most people. (this goes for movies too I have never seen Marley and me and I refuse to let it cross the threshold of my house) however at the time a bunch of people in my unit were reading the book and I wanted to be part of the conversation. Basically this is the story of a mans life as told from the dogs perspective. the dogs name is enzo and the owner is a middle-aged man named Denny.  Denny is an amateur racer so a lot of the book is told in racing terms. If you aren't into car racing ( like indy 500) it can make some of the book both a little boring and a little confusing.  However enzo is the perfect narrator. As a dog he is preprogrammed to see the best in everything but he can also soften the blow of some of the more depressing moments in the book because he doesn't understand the motive behind some actions. However the narration never feels forced or cheesy.
As far as the book itself the best way to describe it is it reminded me a lot of the story of job from the bible. Denny is handed crap after crap in the book and has to figure out how to deal with it(or learn the art of racing in the rain as Enzo puts it). From getting married and having a child and buying his first house to sickness, death, custody Battles, and losing his job, seemingly overnight Denny's life goes from decent and normal to everything that could go wrong does. It might seem like the kind of book that makes you consider taking up drinking just to forget about it but because its narration is from a dog even when Denny is consumed by crushing depression with seemingly no way out theres always a layer of optimism however small.
The audio book is only about 7 hours so things do move fairly quickly in the story since from what I can tell it only covers a few years of Denny and enzo's life and so it never felt rushed to me. Although the ending made me cry like a baby I really liked this book...I think. Its the kind of book you'll kinda think back on every now and again and go yeah I think I liked it ( although not sure how long it'll be before I actually read it again. Probably at least a year)

I guess thats all the thoughts I have on this book really. Its worth a shot and I would suggest it to anyone looking for a semi short book thats a little out of the ordinary.