Kenci’s Reviews > The Dog Stars > Status Update

"My name is Hig, one name. Big Hig if you need another."

I'm so glad I reread this! I loved it so much this time around - the sparse, beautiful writing, I loved Hig and Jasper. I know I'll revisit them often.

"It caught me sometimes: that this was okay. Just this. That simple beauty was still bearable barely, and that if I lived moment to moment, garden to stove to the simple act of flying, I could have peace."

"Grief is an element. It has its own cycle like the carbon cycle, the nitrogen. It never diminishes not ever. It passes in and out of everything."

"This was our ritual while we waited for our lives to truly begin and I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo."

“We move in and out of cottonwoods which make a deeper darkness. Thickets of willows. Up the grassy slopes going pale, into a short rock canyon echoing the spilling water. Then a ponderosa forest, smelled before seen, the scent carried downstream: redolent of vanilla, like a sweetshop. These still living.”

“On this afternoon in late April I worked slowly, enjoying the warmth of the day and letting the sun soak into my winter bones. I talked to Jasper the whole time.”

“Were life that simple, I thought, as I had many times before. Simple as a dog’s life.”

"Mostly I just want to go up there. It feels like church, hallow and cool. The dead forest swaying and whispering, the green forest full of sighs."

"I asked him if he ever thought there was anything more than this, than just surviving day to day. Recon, fixing the plane, growing the five vegetables, trapping a rabbit. Like what are we waiting for?"

I read this 5 years ago, listening to the audiobook in the week leading up to a hiking trip to Colorado. This time around I'm taking the time to sit and read. I already know I didn't give it the attention it deserved before. I love the sparse yet lyrical writing style. I'm picking up on so much that I didn't catch before.

I honestly don't remember the ending, but there's a dog, so I know it will break my heart.