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The Art of Racing in the Rain
Book review of The Art of Racing in the rain
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Katie, your review is amazing. You have a really awesome sense of detail and you definitely showed it in this review. Your book sounds really interesting, too. Good job
I love that quote you used. This review is very good and this book sounds like something I would enjoy reading. I also like how you talked about the author's writing in your review. Nicely done, Katie.
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The Art of Racing in the rain, by Garth Stein
(Spoiler Alert)
With a book called “Racing in the rain”, you’d expect it to be about a type of sport, but in fact, it is about finding how humans and dogs share a closer bond than we could have ever imagined it to be.
The author, Garth Stein, takes readers on a journey with a dog named, Enzo, and his owner, Denny, a race car driver. Enzo narrates his story from the present time, to then rewinding back to his life as a pup and where he first met Denny. From there, their lives intertwine, mind and soul for a lifetime to come.
With the perspective of a dog, people automatically assume it’ll be all over the place and silly, but Enzo shows a different side to canines. He expresses a highly intelligent and expressive mind when looking at other dogs, similar to one of a humans.
Stein uses the imagery of what Enzo sees and experiences to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into the book, capturing every moment with emotion and well developed details. All building up the compassion and love for the main character as he tells his and Denny’s struggle through life.
As it goes from a cherry love filled story, things take a turn for the worst when Denny’s wife, Eve, becomes incredibly ill with cancer. She leaves her daughter, Zoë, in the hands of her parents who want full custody over her as Denny is away racing. As Denny fights for his custody rights, he ends up getting framed by Eve’s cousin for rape. Eve’s family shames him and he isn't even allowed to go to his own wife’s funeral. He even begins to struggle to get back on his career, but with the strained distance from Zoe, he declines a big shot driver from Italy requesting his talent.
As Denny starts paying tons and tons of money for a lawyer to help his case against the cousin, he wants nothing more than to regain custody rights. All the while, Enzo tries to cope alongside Denny as they miss out on Zoe’s life more and more.
Stein has the stakes high as the court case comes closer and closer. Stein has the readers rooting and hoping Denny win by this point. He Draws them in with the heart cringing pain that Denny feels as he realizes what will happen if he loses this case. The relationship between daughter and father stretched too far for either of them to bear.
Enzo goes in between chapters of the reality of the story to facts and relatable themes with racing such as this quote, ““That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.” Leaving it all up to the characters to change their own fate. Denny has to change his life the same way that he does as he drives in the rain in order to succeed, tackling his greatest fear head on. By speaking to the cousin, at last facing his fear, he has her realize what is at stake for him and pleads for her to confess the actual truth of the situation. That she was the one who came onto him.
When the case took place, she broke down and admitted to the court that Denny was innocent and had done no wrong. The court freed him of his pain filled heart and allowed him to reunite with his daughter. Enzo, Zoe and Denny lived a peaceful and jubilant lifestyle afterward together, sharing their love for racing as a family. But Enzo had developed a plan for his last act as a dog. He knew his age was becoming a problem and would be too difficult for Denny to put up with if it went on for longer. Enzo had known that he possessed more intelligence than other dogs, one closer to a human’s mind. He was hoping to be re-incarnated in human form after his death. Where he would hold onto his knowledge and memories he shared with Denny, to show him for once, that he had understood all that he learned after the years they shared.
Stein shows the whole story as a past reflection of Enzo’s life the night before he is going to pass away. He made it easy to have the readers’ emotions and love for Enzo build up throughout the story. Enzo knew that in order for Denny to follow his dreams of ever becoming a great driver, he would need to leave him in this life. Even though it was a tough decision for him to make, he needed to do this for the sake of Denny’s future success in Italy that he had been deserting for too long now. It cripples the readers hearts to say goodbye to Enzo with Zoe and Denny as they have to put him down, but it doesn’t end here. Stein pulls the readers back in when he shows that Denny did in fact go to Italy with Zoe , and how they both became great racers. Stein even surprises the reader by brings Enzo back into the story in a human form. Stopping by to say “Enzo says hello.” Stein twisted around the actual outcome of the story from depressing to jubilant in a foreshadow shown earlier in the book.
How Stein had depicted the scenes of turmoil and hardship throughout the story is brilliant. He uses darks vs. lights and the way moods were expressed and shown through the characters to foreshadow events of either happiness or a dark outcome ahead. He’s able to bring to life the characters and situations facing them through these small indicators he leaves behind for the readers to pick up on. Using great amounts of detail to depict every chapter Enzo narrates, actually making it seem as if the reader is hearing this story from a perspective of a dog trapped inside a human body.