Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Bob Tarte - Fowl Weather



Fowl Weather - how thirty-nine animals and one sock monkey took over my life

The title does not lie. This one’s a bit of downer. In fact, unless you read the author’s first book “Enslaved by Ducks” and liked it, I’d say skip this one. If you have no prior reading relationship with Bob Tarte and his mad menagerie there is no reason you’d want to endure hearing about the worst years of his life.

Sometimes life sucks. After Tarte’s father unexpectedly passes away, his mother starts fast descending into senile dementia. And at the same time he’s trying to cope with that, many of favorite pets seem to start kicking the bucket too. I told you it was depressing. The only good thing is that new pets keep showing up – although some of them don’t fare too well either.

It’s not that I didn’t like the book exactly – I guess in a way I kinda did. I like reading about all the parrots, bunnies, cats, geese and ducks. Sometimes life sucks and there is no good reason not to write about it. But it did get me down.

4 comments:

Jeane said...

I liked his first book. This one does sound dismal, but I'm always fascinated how someone can keep such a menagerie going- I struggle to manage just two cats and a hamster!

inês said...

I guess this one's strictly for the die-hard fans of "Enslaved by Ducks" and still just to prove the first one was a lot funnier...

We adopted a puppy over Christmas (have 2 adult dogs) and I swear I've never been this exhausted...!

Bob Tarte said...

Thanks for mentioning my two books. Yes, "Fowl Weather" is definitely the darker of the two. But the range of reactions I get to "Fowl Weather" is really interesting. A lot of people just seem to think it's funny, which strikes me as a bit odd.

Anyway, I'm writing a book about our six cats now called "The Funnel of Happiness," and there are no deaths or depressing hardships in this one.

inês said...

I like that there's always an element of 'extreme' pet ownership in your books...- a man and his cat? Bah, try six on for size...I'm looking forward to reading it! Thank you for stopping by