As a follower of Isabel Klee, I enjoyed some parts of her upcoming memoir, Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About (a big thanks to William Morrow for this advanced copy). As a reader, I was disappointed.
Let’s talk about it.
The cover is absolutely fantastic – it is truly perfect. And it does capture the essence of the memoir, which is a love letter to New York City, dogs, and girlhood.
Now to the memoir itself. There isn’t much substance. It’s rather fluffy, at times incredibly shallow and self-indulgent, and spends far more time telling than showing. There are sections where it read like she was struggling to reach a word count and meet a deadline. I would have loved more information about the eight years she spent as an assistant to The Dogist, her rise to internet fame and how she struggled with that (and how her relationships were impacted – we see that a little with a brief note that Jacob was upset she didn’t mention him on Instagram), more about her female friends, and, much like Aunt Susan, TELL ME ABOUT THE DOGS. We get brief snippets of the dogs that tie in some life lesson, frequently a love lesson, but there is a disconnect between the dog, the lesson, and the story.
This is the problem: just because you are an influencer, doesn’t mean you should write a memoir. She did not pitch this – an agent contacted her. Now Klee studied creative writing, and she is a talented writer – I don’t want to take that away from her. But I don’t think a memoir was necessarily the best foot forward, and I think this was rushed to ride the Tiki-wave of virality. (Hence the cover featuring Tiki and shoehorned section about Tiki.)
That said, it will sell well because of her following. I think the audio will do extremely well because Klee narrates it and she has a very distinctive and lovely cadence to her narration. So perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea for that agent. I do think I am done with influencer memoirs, doggy or not.
But that cover… perfection.
As a note because I am a dog person – (Not saying any or all of this is found in the memoir…)
- Adopt don’t shop is dangerous propaganda
- Support responsible rescues and responsible breeders
- A dog doesn’t need a “back story” to be worth rescuing (ex. hurricane dogs, street dogs, “insert some horrible backstory” dog…)
- Rescues should not be importing dogs
- Pets aren’t props
- Parasocial relationships are bad
A Girl Named Tommi 