Dog is back - the Bark Knight has risen. Unfortunately for weary owner October Jones (but luckily for us), that means there is a brand new selection of the funniest, most bizarre texts from his insane canine companion. There is also the welcome return of Batdog and CatCat (half cat, half cat), and a new 'friend' in Benedict, the creepiest pug in the world.
Whilst the original “Texts From Dog” book might not have been entirely successful in terms of how the idea translated into the format, any humour book that has sufficient source material and performs well enough in sales terms is always likely to spawn a sequel. Sadly, such sequels aren’t always well thought out and the tag-line “Bigger. Badder. Textier.” doesn’t inspire confidence that this will be any better put together than usual.
The basic idea remains very good, consisting of the texts a dog and an owner might exchange should the latter teach the former to text. However, as a dog’s interests are limited to eating everything they can, peeing on anything they find, breaking and burying things and, apparently, feeling ambivalent towards his owner, depending on the circumstances and hating his owner’s girlfriend and postman, the subject matter is a little limited.
In an attempt to not make this book a copy of the first one, they’ve changed things up a little. Some of these changes work quite nicely, such as Dog’s use of the reminder functions on his new phone. The few jokes where Dog discovers Siri are amusing enough, especially the one where he tried to text using voice control and the Skype conversations between BatDog and CatCat are also a novel touch and provide additional humour and the pictures and the “Wanted” poster are good fun, too.
However, other attempts to change things up are a bit more of a stretch and don’t work as well. Dog teaches his friend Benedict to text and he sends a few texts, but Benedict is sex obsessed and more than a little creepy and the texts from him feel like a juvenile attempt at humour that the first book didn’t descend to and the relationship between Dog and his owner’s girlfriend is pretty much one joke used a little too often.
As with the first book, there are some funny moments here, but given that you can get funny moments from the “Texts From Dog” Facebook page without spending any money, this feels like an attempt to cash in on people who bought the first book and the stretching of the idea to breaking point doesn’t make it worth paying for.
In honor of National Dog Day, I sat down and read this book. Correction, I sat down and laugh my way through this book.
Seriously, if you are a dog owner, then you would come to appreciate the humor of getting random texts from your dog throughout the day. From chasing mailmen, to getting in fights with cats & squirrels; from intense jealousy of the human's girlfriend to lamenting the loss of his testicles, Batdog texts his Master with randomness through out the day.
And reminds us that there is a reason WHY we dont give Dogs cell phones.
I don't get enough books that make me laugh until my stomach hurts. Texts from Dog does and I'll be forever grateful for it. Moreso if you love dogs.
This book was read under the "Stand Up For Half An Hour In a Bookstore And Guerilla-Read a Book" program. I did it in FNAC. Because the assholes want me to pay 15 Euros for a 5 Pounds book. When I have the chance, definitely buying this from Amazon.
I enjoyed this more than the first book, probably because it contains fewer strips already appearing on the website. The branching out from just texts into other media also let the world of Batdog grow a little. Some hilarious moments, but it could do with being longer!