Sierra

I love this book and feel it deserves more attention considering the astronomical popularity of the author's Twilight. I think this has wider appeal in terms of subject matter, target audience, and the way it was written. If you're not much a fan of Twilight, but enjoy romance and science fiction, you might just love this. And if you love Twilight... what took you so long?? Read it! Don't watch the movie beforehand though... not a fan. It's been a while since I saw it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "good bad" as many people see the Twilight movies.

In my opinion this is a very rare example of a movie improving on its source material. I enjoy the movie, so this review is going to specifically compare the two, not look at the book for its own sake. This story is much better served through visual storytelling. The film gives Alec and the Black more time together on the beach, enriching their relationship and making its mutual nature far more believable than the utilitarian tone of the book. The beach scenes are infinitely improved on in the film by not being filtered through the thoughts of literary Alec. The book focuses more on Alec's desire to ride and control the Black and of course race, whereas the movie, at least during the beach scenes, shows Alec earning the Black's trust through time together, providing food, and mutual play. I also feel the film's choice to age-down Alec from a teenager to a younger boy better serves the story and I appreciate how they had Alec keep the horse in his front yard at first because as a child I fantasized about having a horse in my back yard.

The premise of this book is very unique and interesting. However, as someone who studied zoology and anthropology, some of the author's choices pulled me out of the illusion. The way the book is written in terms of themes and events seems to suggest the author subscribes to the unscientific belief in dominance theory among dogs and that human nature is also competitive and cut-throat. Combine the two, and this book has so much competition and violence for a story about two cooperative, social species. This book is really about what makes us human, not about what makes a dog a dog, and yet despite trying to incorporate both, it fails to really explore the reality of either. It doesn't really add anything new to the conversation of our humanity and works off of a relatively narrow view uninformed by anthropology, sociology, or linguistics. I feel like this book could have been great if the author knew more about the subjects he was using thematically.

I'm sorry to say that although well-meaning, this book is a white saviour's wet dream. The horrors it describes perpetrated against women are harrowing and eye-opening, but the authors ignore the causes of the socio-economic and political problems in the global south leading to such injustices and the global north's massive role in creating and perpetuating these problems in favour of recommending bandage solutions that rely on western charity and capitalism. The authors also completely ignore violence and injustice against women in the global north as if it's only a problem "over there" and are a bit racist. They make a big deal out of apparent differences in the size of European vs. African women's pelvises and site this as a reason for higher maternal mortality in Africa while this has nothing to do with solving the problem. They describe muslim women in a patronizing way as if they're all meek and oppressed under their head scarves. They also more broadly describe women whose stories are featured in the book as if they're characters. I can only assume this was either intended to humanize them or as a stylistic choice, but regardless it's often uncomfortable. I would only recommend this book for someone who has a morbid interest or needs a reality check on the state of women's "equality" today because holy shit some of the things you will read in this book are beyond words. If they did one thing right with this book, it's that you will be angry.

This book is mind-blowing. Anyone who has any interest in, or interaction with, animals should read this. I have always had a high opinion of animals' intelligence, but even I could not help but be amazed by the things I read in this book about the cognitive abilities of animals (in the least patronizing way possible). The most important thing I learned when I first read this book was that there is no hierarchy of intelligence as is commonly thought. When we say, for example, "dolphins are extremely intelligent" or "dogs are smarter than cats", what is the reference point? Humans. Because we are humans, we compare every other organism's intelligence to our own. This is natural. However, as de Waal points out, there are multiple intelligences, as many as every species, and comparing the intelligences of other organisms evolved within other ecological niches than ourselves to our own way of thinking is incorrect. The more correct thing to say would be "dolphin cognition is very similar to our own" or "dogs' cognition is more similar to ours than cats' is". We are not the smartest organism. We think an animal is "smart" when they think and act like we do instead of looking at how well their cognitive abilities allow them to live their own non-human lives in their own non-human environments. Every animal has the best intelligence for the environment and life history they evolved within. That is evolution's whole thing after all. I highly recommend reading this and then following it with de Waal's Mama's Last Hug.