Stay By: Allie Larkin

Title: Stay
Author: Allie Larkin
PAPERBACK
Amount of Pages: 308
Release Date: June 10, 2010
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Geared Towards: Adults
From: Sparks Agency (Review Copy)

"I tried to reach for the remote, but I couldn't get it wihtout taking my arm away from him, so I just lay there, listening to him breathe until I fell asleep, and for the first time since the wedding, I didn't dream of Peter, sunsets, or Greek gods for Janie" (P. 71).

Summary (From B.O.B): Savannah "Van" Leone has been in love with Peter Clarke since their first day of college. Six years later, Peter is marrying Van's best friend, Janie. Loyal to a fault, Van dons her pumpkin orange, maid of honor gown and stands up for the couple, struggling to hide her true feelings even when she couldn't be more conspicuous. After the wedding, nursing her broken heart with a Rin Tin Tin marathon plus a vodka chaser, Van accidently orders a German shepherd puppy over the Internet. When "Joe" turns out to be a hundred-pound beast who only respons to commands in Slovak. Van is at the end of her rope-until she realizes that sometimes life needs to get more complicaed before it can get better.

Wdebo's Review: As a giant dog lover, I was very excited to start STAY, in truth I only began reading it because the plot sounded somewhat interesting and the dog on the cover was pretty damn adorable. When I began the novel, I was pleasently surpirsed to see how easy it was for me to get into the storyline, to click with the characters, especially with Van. As I read it, I was hooked from the start till the end.

The writing was very wonderful, especially for a debut novel. Allie Larkin's writing was simple and natural which was one of the reasons why it was so enjoyable, it just seemed like something that could happen to anyone, but was still fictionalized in a way that made it into a great story, to be able to just sit down and indulge without having to overthink anything. The thing I most loved about the story; however, was that though it is about a dog coming into a girl's life and changing it, there was still another plot in there, about finding oneself when one gets lost.

Though Van is not the best character ever (She drinks way too much and whines quite a lot), I still enjoyed reading about her life and seeing how it slowly repaired itself from its broken state. All of the other characters were enjoyable too which made reading the book very nice.

Cafe Cover Chat: Seriously, a dog in a cardboard box? My kind of cover. :) (A)

All in all, a great novel for dog lovers and non-dog lovers alike. It's a doggone wonderful story that shows the true meaning of companionship. If I had a tail, it would have been wagging throughout the course of the novel.

Grade: A-

Wdebo :)