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    Other People's Pets: A Novel
    Other People's Pets: A Novel
    Other People's Pets: A Novel
    Ebook313 pages4 hours

    Other People's Pets: A Novel

    By R.L. Maizes

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    • 2021 Colorado Book Awards Winner •

    R.L. Maizes's Other People’s Pets examines the gap between the families we’re born into and those we create, and the danger that holding on to a troubled past may rob us of the future.

    La La Fine relates to animals better than she does to other people. Abandoned by a mother who never wanted a family, raised by a locksmith-turned-thief father, La La looks to pets when it feels like the rest of the world conspires against her.

    La La’s world stops being whole when her mother, who never wanted a child, abandons her twice. First, when La La falls through thin ice on a skating trip, and again when the accusations of “unfit mother” feel too close to true. Left alone with her father—a locksmith by trade, and a thief in reality—La La is denied a regular life. She becomes her father’s accomplice, calming the watchdog while he strips families of their most precious belongings.

    When her father’s luck runs out and he is arrested for burglary, everything La La has painstakingly built unravels. In her fourth year of veterinary school, she is forced to drop out, leaving school to pay for her father’s legal fees the only way she knows how—robbing homes once again.

    As an animal empath, she rationalizes her theft by focusing on houses with pets whose maladies only she can sense and caring for them before leaving with the family’s valuables. The news reports a puzzled police force—searching for a thief who left behind medicine for the dog, water for the parrot, or food for the hamster.

    Desperate to compensate for new and old losses, La La continues to rob homes, but it’s a strategy that ultimately will fail her.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 14, 2020
    ISBN9781250304124
    Author

    R.L. Maizes

    R.L. Maizes’s novel, OTHER PEOPLE’S PETS (Celadon Books, Macmillan), is a Colorado Book Award Winner and a Library Journal Best Debut of Summer/Fall 2020. She is the author of the short story collection WE LOVE ANDERSON COOPER (Celadon Books). Her stories have aired on National Public Radio, and can be found in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and in The Best Small Fictions 2020. Maizes’s essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, O Magazine, and Literary Hub and have aired on NPR. Her humor articles have run in The New York Times and in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Maizes was born in Queens, New York, and lives in Boulder County, CO.

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    Reviews for Other People's Pets

    3.5/5

    11 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      With the book’s name of Other Peoples’ Pets, and the bright green cartoon cover, I was expecting a happy book, not the dark drama of this story. Despite being surprised, I was drawn into the story of a child traumatized by her mother’s abandonment and her father’s paranoia due to the family business of burglary. La La learns how to burgle and how to avoid arrest from her father Zev.La La grows up with an unusual empathy for animals. She feels their pains and their fears. She loves animals deeply, eventually working toward a veterinary degree. Despite people and animals in her life who love her, La La feels alone and abandoned. The one person she wants back in her life is Elissa, her mother, the woman who almost drowned her in an icy pond. Surely, Elissa is sorry that she left, and secretly longs for a new relationship with her daughter. La La creates an ideal mother in her vivid imagination, basing very little on the few facts that she remembers. In the meantime, when Zev is finally caught for burglary, and is in jail awaiting adjudication, La La pays down the expensive lawyer’s fees by dropping out of veterinary school to burglarize and then fence the stolen items. Her justifications are helping her father, who sacrificed so much for her, and tending to the sick or abused animals she finds in each house.La La’s story is realistic, including the art of burglary and retaining anonymity. Any animal lover will learn to love La La’s broken spirit, her flawed life, and her passion for helping animals.
    • 4/5
      This is a completely original storyline complete with a flawed and charming character, La La Fine, who is in veterinary school and is completely in love with animals, Brought up by a locksmith, she uses skills learned from her father to break into houses where animals are being abused. Oh, and she’s also responsible for the attorney fees for her father who has been charged with breaking into the home of an elderly man who fell down the stairs and may not live. This is a story to read and enjoy and forget about what is going on around you.
    • 4/5
      If I could only use one word to describe this novel, it would be unique. Oh, it was a bit trite in that it was about a dysfunctional family AND a dysfunctional relationship, but the dysfunctions aren't like anything you've ever read before.For the most part, I enjoyed this book except for a couple of personal reasons. And those particular reasons are the only ones that keep me from giving this book a 5-star rating. Fist of all I have issues with those who 'rob from the rich because the rich person's insurance will cover it,' that the rich person has more than they deserve -to give to the poor. And in this case, the poor are La La and her father. My second objection is in a scene that describes pretty much in detail, of putting an elderly cat down. Since I am a lover of cats and have had to do this same thing many times, I did not appreciate the description of the act. As a matter of fact, the author does this same thing, but the next time it is with a dog that you had come to know.Those personal reasons aside -this was a well-written novel with well fleshed out characters. Some of these characters you will come to love, and some you will come to dislike thoroughly, and I think that this was the author's intention.Not a light read by any means, and keep the tissues handy.*ARC supplied by the publisher and the autho
    • 5/5
      I adore Other People's Pets! It is fresh and heartfelt, a perfect read during stressful times. La La and her father Zev will win your heart.Even if they are burglars.LaLa's mother ran off when she was nine. She wasn't a very good mother. When they were ice skating, LaLa fell through the ice and her mother didn't notice. LaLa was rescued by a large black dog. The near-death-event left her an animal empath.Zev was a locksmith by day and a burglar by night. He homeschooled LaLa and took her on his heists, isolating her to protect himself. He couldn't risk his daughter giving away his secret life. LaLa has a special relationship with a veterinarian who notices her insight into animals and takes her under his wing.LaLa is in vet school, living with her fiance, when her father lands in prison, unable to make bail. He was caught after calling 911 to help the man he was robbing. LaLa makes the hard decision to put her dad first.As LaLa's life stray further from her dreams, she takes comfort that she only robs houses with ailing pets she can help.LaLa and Zev have never recovered from their abandonment. Zev still carries a torch for his wife and LaLa dreams of gaining her mother's approval, which brings them to a fatal meeting.LaLa faces a series of heartbreaking losses, including her beloved dog, Black. In the end, LaLa realizes the true meaning of family and finds her place in the world.I love Mazies humor. Descriptions like, "The pores on his nose are big enough to house a fly" and "ears grown large from listening," and Zev's business name of "Honesty Locksmith," kept me laughing out loud.I loved R. L. Mazies book of short stories We Love Anderson Cooper, filled with memorable, flawed, yet loveable characters.I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

    Book preview

    Other People's Pets - R.L. Maizes

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