Review: The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

Description

In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact.

 

Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica. (Goodreads)

 

Book Details

Title: The Dust of 100 Dogs

Author: A.S. King

Paperback: 336 pages

Publisher: Flux; First Edition edition

Release Date: January 13, 2009

ISBN-10: 0738714267

ISBN-13: 978-0738714264

Author’s Website

Source: Self Purchace

Review

I was so excited to read The Dust of 100 Dogs! It had been recommended to me by a few people and when I got it in the mail I could not have loved the cover more. Go back up look at that cover one more time, is it not gorgeous?

This was very different from any other book I have read before. I think this was my first pirate and also my first reincarnation story.  Put those together and you get one very different kind of ride. The Dust of 100 Dogs is told from three perspectives: Emer, Saffron, and Fred Livingstone.

I loved Emer! I honestly don’t see how anyone who reads this book can not love her character. Emer is a pirate, a for real kick ass, captain of her own ship pirate. I rooted for her even as she lay dying. Emer is cursed to live the lives of 100 dogs. Have you ever thought about the fact that dogs don’t always have the best life? Emer is finally reborn into a girl named Saffron.

Saffron is never really her own person, she has had Emer in her head since the beginning. Because Emer has always been there all Saffron wants is to get away from her horrible family to the treasure Emer left behind so long ago. I felt bad for Saffron her parents looked to her as being the hope for their family because she was so smart at such an early age. She was never given the ability to really be her own person. But, on the other hand I loved the strength that Emer gave Saffron, and the images she would put in her head were funny at times. ( I don’t know what that says about me, as they were normally about her doing violent things to people that annoyed her.)   

The villain of this dark tail was also in the past and present. Fred Livingstone is someone from Emer's past who is now in Saffron's present. I don’t know that I have ever hated a character in the way that I hated Fred Livingstone. He was/is evil. I didn’t understand why I had to repeatedly listen to him talk about how gross and fat he was, and how often he put on his foot fungal cream. I could have done with learning these facts once and left it at that.

King writes an engrossing story that makes you want to know what is going to happen next. The Dust of 100 Dogs is one of those books that stick with you long after you have read it.

Happy Reading,

 

It's good. I had fun for the most part.

Recommended For

Older Teen and Up: For language, rape, abuse to animals, and violence.