Book #77 of 2023: The One and Only Bob | Book #78 of 2023: Blood on the Sands

The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate.

Book #2 of the The One and Only series. While I had loved the first book (The One and Only Ivan, about a captive gorilla), The One and Only Bob (about Ivan's best friend, a dog) worked a lot less well for me.

The plot is set directly after Ivan, so since talking about Bob would spoil Ivan, I'll put it behind a cut: As book 1 ended, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the baby elephant were moved to a good zoo. A real zoo, one that takes care of their animals, unlike the "zoo" in the mall. In book 2, Bob the stray dog (who had intended to live his life forever as a stray) moved in with a family. That was one of the first issues of the story; in book 1, Bob had been dead set on being independent, then suddenly he's okay with being a pet.

His girl owner took him to the zoo all the time so he could visit Ivan and Ruby. The adult zookeepers were somehow fine with that... End spoiler.

While Ivan had felt like a "natural" story, like it could really happen in a reasonable way, Bob felt the opposite. While Bob was at the zoo, a hurricane with tornados hit, and so the animals got loose and Bob (a tiny dog) had to help save everything.

It wasn't a bad book. I believed Bob as a dog... just not as the same dog as in book #1. Also, unlike the first book, this book felt like it was written for young child readers, while Ivan was very much enjoyable to me as well.

I'm going to pass on book #3.

Blood on the Sands (or A Thief In Farshore) The Farshore Chronicles, Book 1 by Justin Fike.

This book was originally published as Blood on the Sands, with a different cover than I linked here. The cover of Blood was more interesting but a lot less professional, but doesn't seem to exist anywhere online anymore.

This was a really odd read. Though it's book 1 of a series, it felt like a prequel put out after the series was finished -- it felt like it was missing a ton of worldbuilding and background.

All in all, the story wasn't bad. A homeless girl/thief gets caught and is sentenced to forced labor in a foreign, magical land. She pissed off a powerful man and ends up fighting for her life in an arena.

Oddly the last chapter of my version of the book was full of typos and editing issues, though the rest of it was fine. I'd assume the A Thief In Farshore version of the book addressed those problems.