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Death in Her Hands,
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Kendall Wilson
I agree with MacKenzie - I think a lot of evidence points to her having blackouts (maybe schizophrenia or split personality, or something else?) and doing things she doesn't remember during these blackouts. For example, it's just subtly mentioned towards the end that a draft to the note about Magda ("Her name was Magda...") is in the back of her notebook, meaning she probably wrote the note herself and not "Blake." My theory is that during one of these blackouts she did something bad to Charlie and he became scared of her. On a metaphysical level, maybe he sensed a dark energy surrounding her as she unraveled more and more.
Karissa
Did he ever really exist or was he just a well imagined coping mechanism for her? As she unraveled, so did he. Note that she didn't buy him dog food. He ate whatever she was eating.
Luke
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MacKenzie
The more I read, the more I got the impression that Vesta was having "black outs" and doing things without remembering them to further the story she was writing in her mind-for example removing the seeds from her garden and cutting the brake line of her car. I thought maybe during one of these episodes she acted cruelly towards Charlie and ran him out of the house and now he is wary of her. It could be that all of these are just delusions, but I thought in her mental state she might go so far as to act as her own antagonist.
Kristin
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Jolene
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Fawn
I think Charlie may have been a wolf and not a dog...
Allison Shifman Chartier
I have so many questions about what was real and what was imagined in this book, but when reading, I assumed he was bitten and had gone rabid. When she was at her neighbor's house earlier that day, the husband referenced the lost dog may end up with rabies, which I assumed was foreshadowing.
Molly Siskin
It initially struck me as Charlie's weird behavior may have been a projection from Vesta's mind, and she was just trying to imagine herself a reason to attack and be rid of a dog she no longer wanted to care for, but I actually like some of the other theories proposed by others here a lot.
Sinead Flanagan
I find the idea of Charlie either being a wolf or not even real extremely interesting and quite plausible. My own initial theory was that she was abusing him in some way. I felt Vesta always seen Charlie not as a living feeling creature but as something for her own self satisfaction. Like when she fed him lentils instead of proper dog food I found that very cold. In general she seemed very pre-occupied with how other people perceived her.
Frances Joossens
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Katelyn
I think instead of viewing the book as a novel, it should be seen as a thriller, or even supernatural? Like Vesta was clearly losing it towards the end, and part of the suspense of the book was the tension. Her relationship with her dog was the only 'real' thing she had left, and the only thing readers have. It worked for me, to a certain extent. I could understand a young dog like Charlie (who was a mutt, he could have been born to feral parents) to have maybe gone a little feral while being away for the day, or maybe he was bit by something rabid.
Mcailin
I wonder if he did exist at one time, but she is lamenting him as well? All of the anecdotes of him seem to have a sad undertone. I’m thinking the dog at the end wasn’t actually Charlie, but the rabid dog the neighbor mentioned
Emma Burris
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Emilie T
I think that Charlie going mad was Vesta showing us how she was losing her own mind.
Han
At one point Vesta describes Charlie as shaking his head “no” - lateral head tremors like this are a common symptom of rabies, like the drooling and frothing, and weird behavioural differences she notes. Imo I think he really did attack her and it wasn’t in her head!
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