Honestly, I thought that this one was going to be better. Don't get me wrong, I did like the book. I still thought it was pretty good. It was just not as good as I had expected.
It all started out so great for me. The first few chapters with 93-year-old Jacob were so charming, I was sure I was in for a 5/5 star read. Then it started going downhill around chapter 4 or so when that jarring nipple play scene happened.
There were a number of graphic sexual scenes throughout the book that felt very out of place to me. I don't consider myself to be a prude or anything, but I did feel that the explicit content didn't add to the story. Actually, I felt it cheapened the story overall.
Aside from that, the majority of the characters were pretty flat. The animals had more personality than a lot of the people. The only characters that I actually enjoyed reading about were Walter and his dog Queenie. Marlena may as well have been a rag doll or a head of iceberg lettuce for the amount of personality she had. Jacob was just kind of so-so for me. I liked him better as an old man, tbh.
Towards the end of the book, things got very exciting, and I was tempted to give this book 4 stars because of how into it I got during those chapters, but, by the end, I was left feeling like this was an average, somewhat forgettable story.
I'm glad I read it but I don't feel like I'm really taking anything special away from this story. Oh, well. At least it was a quick read.