Thanks to Rory, the author, for taking the time to send me an ARC of this book and for taking a chance on a relatively new book blogger/bookstagrammer.
MINOR SPOILERS.
Wow… What did I just read?!
I finished this book about half an hour ago and spent the next 15 minutes sitting in silence, trying to process it all.
For me, this was a book of two halves. The first is a farcical sci-fi story in which a man named Dave is abducted by aliens and ultimately sold to fifth-dimensional beings as their “pet”.
There are some truly hilarious, utterly ridiculous moments in the first half, including the most graphic poop scene I think I’ve ever read. Much of the book follows Dave as he tries to make sense of what has happened to him. Why has he been abducted? What do these beings want from him? He never quite grasps that, to them, he is simply a pet.
Dave also spends A LOT of time masturbating in the early portions of the book. Please understand that neither this nor the aforementioned poop scene is gratuitous. In fact, both help build a picture of who Dave is. And trust me, the more you get to know him, the more those details make sense.
Like all pets, Dave begins to care for his owners, who, in turn, come to care for him. Over time, the feelings on both sides develop into genuine love. Not the love between equals, perhaps, but the love of an owner for a pet, and a pet for its owner…
And this is where the moral questions begin to emerge. What right do we have to own another living creature? To us, a dog or a cat is a lesser species. But to a fifth-dimensional being capable of travelling through time and across multiple dimensions, Dave is much the same. So, is there really a difference between them owning Dave and us owning our beloved family pets?
One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was watching the person Dave could become when given all the space and time in the universe. Freed from the trappings of societal expectations, whether that’s working as an accountant or maintaining a social life despite his almost crippling shyness, you begin to see the real Dave hidden underneath it all. The person he might have been all along, given the chance.
Dave eventually befriends another pet named Lamp. They can’t communicate in any conventional sense, and Lamp is a gelatinous blob with multiple eyes. Yet, somehow, they develop a bond so strong that each would die to protect the other. I found this relationship genuinely touching, and it adds another layer to the book beneath all the absurdity.
Then comes the final portion of the story. Without spoiling too much, the ending delivered one of the biggest gut punches I’ve experienced in a book recently. I was left sitting there in stunned silence, trying to take it all in.
This is a truly masterful debut from Rory AB Forrest, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
Dave the Space Pet by Rory AB Forrest releases on November 18th.
⭐ 5 out of 5 stars for me.
And, just to reiterate (excuse the language): what a fucking ending!
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