Publishers Weekly
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Social media influencer Klee’s sweet debut sets her coming-of-age against the backdrop of her experiences fostering dogs. Bookended by Klee’s preparation for a TV interview in the summer of 2024, the memoir spans 11 years, beginning with her decision to move to New York City after dropping out of college and traveling around the U.S. In the city, Klee took a job assisting a pet photographer (“I came home from my job interview soaking wet and covered in dog slobber”), which spurred her to interact with animals more often in her downtime. She eventually signed up to foster dogs in her Queens apartment, and charmingly recounts the trials and rewards of each of her charges, including Simon, an epileptic mutt Klee wound up adopting in 2019. Along the way, she recalls opening her heart to a variety of men, friends, and occupations, and shares the wisdom she gleaned from her parade of four-legged companions (“They live unencumbered, unrelenting, and the state of the world doesn’t matter”). Throughout, Klee proves an endearing, unfussy guide to growing up. Readers will be charmed. Agent: Jessica Spitz, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)

Kirkus
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A dog foster and rescuer experiences love, loss, love, loss… On the whole, it’s widely agreed, dogs are better than people. Certainly much of Klee’s memoir is testimonial. Arriving in New York City convinced of her unlovability, “a huge billboard across my forehead,” she finds solace in “a room full of puppies” at the animal shelter where she volunteers, alternating that solace with other aspects of daily life that were less wholesome and life-affirming. A boyfriend comes along and is found wanting: He loves her, she doesn’t love him, power trips ensue. The names and physiognomies change, but it goes much the same for page on page, with the occasional sharp observation (“We spent the next two years burning each other to the ground”) interrupting an alternately bland and bleak romantic procession. The dogs, as ever, are better, from the epileptic puppy she takes in, to the surrendered, wheelchair-bound French bulldog that brings and receives so much pleasure once a “happily ever after” home is found. Klee’s memoir is at its best when she writes of the most profound moments of the human-dog bond: the love that can blossom between a dog in need and a broken human with “a freshly stomped on heart,” the inevitable excruciating loss that awaits every day with a beloved dog, a loss tempered by the knowledge that the “in-between is pure magic.” As for the human-on-human stuff, it’s mostly meh: Klee’s boyfriends seem to live in and for themselves, and she doesn’t come off so well herself, though she closes on a happily-ever-after note. Clearly, she has a big heart for dogs, but the boys and other things she’s cried about mostly just get in the way. A modest contribution to the canine bookshelf. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.