Rating: 
Summary: Good beginning fades to disappointing ending
Review: Let me preface my remarks by saying that I wanted very much tolike this book. In fact, I did enjoy the first half, and told all myfriends they =had= to read it. Then I finished it... To say I was disappointed is mild. I was angry. I felt utterly short-changed by Bakis who dodged all the important questions of interaction between the human and non-human, who required more than her fair share of willing suspensions of disbelief (all authors get one per story; it is to be hoped they make the most of it. In Monster Dogs, the allowed suspension of disbelief must be that the dogs can exist at all.), and who never delved deeply enough into her characters to allow us to know them on any important level. By the thudding end of the book, which should have been a kind of decadent doggish Gotterdammerung, all I felt was relief - relief that the monster dogs' short, unhappy existence had come to an end fairly naturally, and relief that the book was over. The issues Bakis could have and should have raised in this book would have made a story at least twice as long. She utterly fudged the issue of the dogs' murder of their human masters by making Rankstadt so obscure that it was impossible to find the place and verify the story of the slaughter. (How convenient, now we don't have to deal with the issue of the murders in any realistic way.) She fudged the issue of acceptance by making them fabulously wealthy (Anne Rice did this in "Belinda" and raised my hackles.), and by plunking them down in New York and explaining that New Yorkers are more sophisticated than most people and rather liked the dogs' oddness. (But what about the rest of the world? What sort of never-never land is this?) Most of all she fudged the issue of the relationship between Cleo and Ludwig. We're supposed to believe that these two loved each other? How? How many times did they actually see each other? What sort of intimacy (and I don't necessarily mean sexual intimacy here.) did they exchange? Did we ever see any indication that each of them found the other special in any way? We're told they did, but that's bad writing. We needed to be shown. And the problem here is that if we were to see a more intimate interaction then the issue of sexuality would at least have to be acknowledged if not acted upon. Better to have left the issue unraised than to deal dishonestly with it. What I would tell Bakis is that her writing is not bad, but it would improve dramatically if she gave more time and thought to characterization, did not raise issues she was not prepared to deal with, and told us less while showing us more. Show don't tell, show don't tell - a lesson that should be engraved on the heart of any writer. On the plus side - yes there is one - the idea, though obviously cribbed from H. G. Welles' Dr. Moreau, is a wonderful one, and she deals with it in an original way, Bakis' style is clean and direct, and quite easy to read, and I think she shows some talent for pastiche. I will certainly consider reading her next book. Do I recommend this one? Yes and no. If you read it uncritically and are willing and able to fill in the huge gaps in the information we're given, it may not disappoint. Failing that, I'd have to say "no."
Rating: 
Summary: a beautifully realized idea
Review: When I saw all of the negative reviews (below) for thisbeautifully realized book, I felt obliged to add my two cents here.Bakis is too young to be a great writer. But she does so much so well with a fairly simple idea that IMHO she deserves all the praise she's gotten in the dead trees media. I read _Lives of the Monster Dogs_ while in the middle of writing a tech book for Macmillan (_Database Backed Web Sites_). For weeks afterwards, I kicked myself for working on the Web book for nerds. If I couldn't write as well as Bakis then at least I could try. What was the point of churning out a tutorial when life is so short and art is so beautiful? Anyway, I sold out in the end and finished my tech book and haven't worked on my novel. Here's what I wrote for my friends about Bakis's book... This is science fiction in the tradition of H.G. Wells and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Written by a young woman living in Manhattan, it is about a young woman living in the Manhattan of the year 2009 when 150 dogs laden with jewels and gold arrive in the city from a remote town in northwestern Canada. The dogs have artifical hands and voiceboxes and, because they are rich, are accepted to a large degree by the human society. They end up with fancy apartments, limousines, and human servants. But happiness is more elusive. The book makes you think about what it means to be an outsider. Bakis has a convincing way of getting inside the head of a dog (though her Malamute has blue eyes, a disqualifying fault according to the AKC). One great touch is that the future is exactly like the present. Occasionally, Bakis has people talk casually about a fabric or fashion that we don't have. Otherwise, New York is exactly the same. The poor and young roast in unairconditioned flats; the rich (dogs or otherwise) cruise by in huge limousines. Bakis gets bonus points for writing in a Samoyed bitch who receives love poetry from a scruffy mongrel.
Rating:
Summary: How Disappointing
Review: Taken in by the hype, got the book, read it, sagged with irritated disappointment. Terrific premise, title, cover art, and a natural hook for all doggie people, but, apart from an occasional sniff or switch of the ears, these aren't dogs--one wonders if the author has spent any time with any dog at all--and this isn't very good writing. Indeed, Bakis writes the absolutely worst dialogue I've read in a published work by a major house; she has her heroine, Cleo, dining with the dogs, at which time they bore themselves with inane, contrived, wooden, conversation. On at least three separate such instances, I wanted to fling Lives across the room. Almost unbearable. Skip this book. Spend your book dollars on Philip Roth's masterful American Pastoral
Rating: 
Summary: hollow
Review: Bakis' writing style is pleasing, with her simplicity, economy and correct use of passive voice (although NEVER is my first choice, I had to concede that when she resorted to it, Bakis used passive voice necessarily to clarify between timelines--but I digress)
Unfortunately, and often my complaint with the fantasy/sci-fi genre, there is no real heart to this book. She almost gets at the mind of August Rank, then abandons him. Ludwig promises to sear us with his descent into hell, then runs off (or dies) in the end, leaving us behind. Lydia's conflict and passion during the dogs' revolution are merely stated; not revealed. And why does she survive? We aren't supposed to care. Klaue's impotent threat, the fear of vivisection by humans, the ride into the sunset with new husband and baby at the end are more examples of underdeveloped storytelling. I read this book in a matter of hours; given enough content to take a few days, in Bakis' dry and forthright style--I think she might have really had something.
Rating:
Summary: Great creativity, so-so execution
Review: A terrific concept (even in the eyes of this cat lover). The dogs are wonderfully original and the idea is a great update of the Frankenstein story. The writing is a little more inconsistent but still plenty impressive for a first novel. I, for one, didn't care for the opera at all but it takes all kinds of readers.
In summary, a good read which I'm glad I found at the library. I'll recommend it to my friends who have a good imagination and the patience to read the book for the details that make it rich.
Rating: 
Summary: A triumph
Review: It has been a long time since I have read a novel as fascinating and as moving as this. I cried my way through the last fifty pages, and thinking of some of the passages would make me start crying anew hours later. The difficulty of being neither human nor beast is given a fresh and poignant treatment. The characters are brought to life so believably that, as I read, I felt as though I had actually met Ludwig, the monster dog, and when I put the book down, I truly missed him. I recommend this book without reservations
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful first novel
Review: I see this book has been received with adoration or apathy. Well, let me join with the former, and say I thought it was a terrific book, always compelling, extremely clever and ultimately moving. Ms. Bakis draws you into her world and makes you believe it, as in all good novels with fantasy elements. She's created wonderful characters, both human and canine. I recommend it wholeheartedly. And bravo to the designer of the dust jacket
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, great premise, but disappointing.
Review: If this book had a better plot, I would have given it a ten. What an amazing idea for a novel, and so compellingly executed for the first three-quarters of the book. The author's writing style, creativity, and competence are remarkable. The opera staged by the dogs to illustrate their history was astoundingly clever, almost worth the price of the book by itself. But I should have stopped reading after that. By the end, the story had lost most of its momentum and seemed ultimately pointless. In this regard it reminded me of The Secret History (a bestseller several years ago, by Donna Tartt, also a young first-time novelist). I hope Bakis writes more novels; if she does, I suspect her next one will be sensational
Rating: 
Summary: Over-rated; greatly disappointing main character.
Review: I searched for and bought this first novel by Kirsten Bakis largely because of the reviews--here and elsewhere. Despite an interesting premise and the promise of possible delectable plot turns or developments, this disappointing novel was less than a dud. The main character, Cleo, was supposed to capture our imagination as she moved between the real and the fantastic, but when this undefined person talked about liking things "a lot" or whipped a laser gun out of her boot (oh, had we really been transported into the future), the reader was annoyed. Cleo's whining conversations about her 'future" were magically--and unbelievably--resolved without a cry or whimper by becoming a journalist. Writing fees magically came and went leaving her only to sigh over the possessions in her apartment--a way to help us understand her ethics, her motiviation, her thoughts? None of it hung together and her novel was as poorly thought-out as Rank's first experiement on a cow and almost as ghastly. Don't bother reading this one.Did anyone with any intelligence bother to buy this book, or were all the reviews written by relatives
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: This first novel by Kirsten Bakis is fantastic. What a strange and beautiful journey Mrs./Miss Bakis takes the reader on. Nothing short of excellent. I recommend it highly
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