Review: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan

Title: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
Author: John Grogan
Year: 2006
ISBN: 978-0-340-93684-9

Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog was written by John Grogan about his experience of adopting a male dog that was flawed in many ways than one. Marley was an uncontrollable ninety-seven pounds steamroller of a Labrador retriever. It was a challenge to raise Marley where John and his wife, Jenny had never come to expect at all.

Marley was the opposite of the textbook description of how Labrador retrievers should grow up to be. He was one of those dogs where even the most ardent dog lovers would question if he was worth at all to go through the trouble of adopting and raising. John and Jenny faced tremendous challenges of bringing up Marley, however, in return, through all his flaws, Marley has taught them that unconditional love could come in any form and way beyond their imagination.

John and Jenny, indirectly through Marley have also learned about parenting skills in which much later they found out took its natural course, and they had three beautiful children, Patrick, Conor and Colleen. Apart from this, the loopy and uncontrollable Marley taught John and Jenny to enjoy simple pleasures of life, where most people failed to do and/or realised.

When Marley finally reached his twilight years and death became an inevitable topic of discussion in the family, the dog actually taught them that there is still much hope in face of such adversity. Marley went through life in his twilight years no differently when he was a young dog. When death finally came to Marley, John realised that this loopy and uncontrollable dog has taught the family more about life than most people John has known throughout his life could have done in their lifetime. 

Although Marley is the central character of this book, I found it to be more of a heart-warming family-oriented true story. John has highlighted the life of his family members in the book as well. This is what made Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog an extremely interesting story that even non-dog lovers would enjoy reading.

John Grogan's first attempt at writing a book, i.e. Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog has proved to be an extremely successful venture as this book has sold five million copies around the world since its first publication in 2005. I LOVE this book to bits because the story was told in a simple manner yet it was heart-warming to know that despite Marley was flawed in more ways than one, John still paid a fitting tribute to this dog.

I highly recommend this book to readers who are into true stories, regardless if they are dog-lovers or otherwise. This book is guaranteed to be a page-turner that you would not want to put it down until you are finished reading it. John Grogan has done a great justice writing this book about Marley. So good is this story that it has been made into a movie, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Watch this space for the review of the movie, coming soon.