I, Cosmo by Carlie Sorosiak

I, Cosmo by Carlie Sorosiak

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I, Cosmo by Carlie Sorosiak is, I suspect, rather brilliant. I didn’t quite understand it for a while until all of a sudden I did; I got it, I understood, and then I was Emotionally Moved and here we are.

This is the story of a golden retriever and his family. His boy. His bacon. It’s odd; undoubtedly, and for some reason the narration reminded me a lot of The Book Thief which is quite the unusual reference for a golden retriever to evoke, but here we are.

I keep returning to that notion of presence. Here we are. Living in the moment, loving in the moment, whispering a secret to a dog that we don’t tell anybody else. I, Cosmo’s premise is a little unusual and a little bit messy sometimes, and I don’t quite know if the ending worked for me, but this isn’t really a book about that sort of thing. It’s about love and love is something that exists in the now for Cosmo and Max. Sure they have a life of stories between them, but they also have the now. That moment when they’ll do anything for each other. And Sorosiak gets that, she writes their love beautifully. It’s incredibly rich and deeply eccentric and rather, utterly, lovely at points.

Here we are. A dog, a boy, and a love that carries them both through some dark times. This is a book that covers family problems, the problems of being an elderly dog, and a sheepdog nemesis. It’s odd. It’s weird. But it’s also so delightfully distinct and packed full of fierce, endless, eternal love that I think I am fascinated by it.

I, Cosmo is out in August from Nosy Crow. My thanks to them for a review copy.

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