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Come join our book club as we discuss Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley.
Lily is Ted’s best friend. She’s short and has big eyes and an infectious personality. Her Match.com profile would list her “likes” as playing Monopoly, watching old movies, and eating mint chocolate-chip ice cream. She’s also a 12-year-old dachshund with a brain tumor. Ted, who visualizes the mass growing inside Lily’s head as a sentient being with a personality all its own, refuses to acknowledge it for what it is and so refers to it as an octopus. As such, Ted faces this monster that is robbing him of his dearest companion, engaging it in a battle of wills that take on epic proportions. Rowley’s portrait of a sensitive, single man facing a pet owner’s worst nightmare brims with the honest emotions that come from unconditional love. This debut novel is being strongly touted, but for all its giddiness and gusto, it is about the death of a loved one, and readers who have faced similar situations will want to think before reaching for this gut-wrenching tale. Once readers commit however, the emotional toll is well worth it because Rowley has written an exceedingly authentic, keenly insightful, and heartbreakingly poignant tribute to the purity of love between a pet and its human.
Please email mhagen@slcolibrary.org for details.