This might be the only post I’ll do on a book I didn’t finish, but I want to talk about why I stopped reading. Bright Hair About The Bone by Barbara Cleverly is the second book in a series and falls in the historical mystery genre. Not a genre I’ll pick up often, but I’ve read enough to like the genre. This was a blind book date I picked up at the library, so I didn’t know anything about it when I got it.
I finished I, Cosmo the previous day and wanted to get through my library books. I was still high on the awesome story Carlie wrote. Shiro was next to me as a started reading Bright Hair About The Bone. I stopped reading after page nine, after the prologue. The story starts with a funeral of a highly regarded lady. And the senseless killing of a dog. I closed the book and gave Shiro a hug. Then I went on to read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
While I’m not entire opposed to violence against animals, it does need a purpose. But the same goes for people. If the murdering of living things is pure shock value, I won’t have it. Maybe if I read more I would’ve figured out why the dog had to die, but the manner of writing was so crude towards it, I doubt I would’ve gotten an answer. If I’m wrong, please let me know in the comments so other readers know why this happens.
A friend on Twitter asked if there was something like Does the dog die, but for books. The site does take suggestions for something other than movies, but the database is far from complete. I’m now strongly considering adding a tag for books with dogs (or pets in general) and if there’s an animal/pet death or not. This might seem silly, but it’s self-care. It’s the same as a trigger warning.
I’m going to think of a good system to implement this.
Yeah, animal deaths are hard to read especially when described.
I definitely understand why you DNFd that. I struggle when there is violence just for shock.