I almost didn’t read this one.

The premise — an aging dog narrating his end-of-life mission to help his human find love after loss — sounded like the kind of book that would wreck me completely. And I won’t lie: I was right. But I was also wrong.

Dog Person is a wonderfully readable story about the depths of love, loss, grief, and healing — narrated, with enormous heart and humor, by a dog named Harold. When Harold’s human, Amelia — a romance novelist, naturally — passes away, she leaves him with one final mission: help Miguel, the love of her life, find love again. Harold takes this task seriously. Miguel does not make it easy.

Grief has swallowed Miguel almost whole. He has pulled himself into the darkness of his loss, barely leaving the home he and Amelia once shared, not even to tend to their passion project: a bookshop they opened and grew together. It takes the looming threat of losing the store to finally spark him into action. Harold is there for every step, and every misstep, along the way — quietly opening his own heart again even as he tries to teach Miguel the same lesson.

Here is what Camille Pagán understands, and what makes this book linger long after the final page: we all know, at least intellectually, that loss is painful. And yet words are almost always insufficient to describe the full depth and breadth of that pain. Dog Person doesn’t try to explain it away or rush past it. Instead, it sits with the broken pieces — and shows us gently how those very pieces can create space for something new to grow.

The ending brought me to tears. But I’m glad I read the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for a free ARC of Dog Person in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions.