Customer Reviews

Nop's Hope

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

McCaig's writing style has matured since penning Nop's Trials. If you've read the first book, you'll understand how it almost feels like somebody else wrote Hope, yet it still carries McCaig's overall simplistic and straightforward flavor. Hope is more about Hope's handler, Penny Burkeholder, and how she tries to cope with life after her family is cruelly and suddenly torn asunder. Nop's offspring, Hope, is integral to the storyline, though not so much as his sire was in Nop's Trials. There's something bleak and distant about this book that makes it feel lonely...though it is appropriate for the story, it lacks a little of the magic and sparkle of Nop's Trials. There's less humor here, less warmth, and I'm uncertain if McCaig intended it to be interpreted this way to help the reader feel what Penny and her family endure during the telling of this tale. It's a great book, but a sad one overall. Fortunately, enough strings remain untied at the end to give hope for at least one more wonderful Burkeholder story.

Donald McCaig has again shown his insight into many levels of relationships, both human and dog. I ached for the Penny as she dealt with her tragedy by building a world for herself that included room for nothing more than her dog and the trial circuit. I also ached for her parents as they sought to reach out to a daughter who was too hardened by her pain to turn to them for support. The two men who were in love with Penny were each very different from the other. I read eagerly to see which, if either, she would choose. Donald McCaig is a very good writer. I like his conversations between the dogs and especially the conversations between Penny and Hope. This book made me remember how much I had liked Nop's Trials, which I immediately re-read.

Since Nop's Trials is in my top two list of favorite reads, I anticipated Nop's Hope to be disappointing, because realistically, what writer can top Nop? But Hope is not disappointing at all. In fact, it's a keeper, a re-reader; a four stars plus, actually. It's not Donald McCaig's fault I wanted to kill Penny the protagonist. I nearly threw the book when she does a certain thing I can't tell you about or I'll ruin the twist. Yeah, sure, she's had it tough, very tough, but she knew better than to do what she did! And these, my dears, are imaginary folk. So Mr. McCaig gets an A. Buy it, give it to every dog person you know.

I found this book very touching. I felt an enormous sense of compassion for Penny and understood her frantic efforts to escape from her overwhelming grief. Although her choices seemed very foreign to me, I felt that I could empathize with her. She often seemed blind to others and their needs, and their efforts to help her, because her own hurts were so enormous. But, her wonderful dog, Hope, was marvelous and, like dogs tend to be, nonjudgemental. Penny's mistakes were realistic, and I think she finally learned from them. The dawning of her ability to move on and begin a new life at the end of the book was sensitively done in the author's easy-reading and unpretentious style. I found this a book for reading over and over again. It did not leave me with the disturbing images that Nop's Trials did.

This is a must read but an emotional ride. Be prepared. A fine and exhausting story. I was up all night with it and loved it. Not a dissapointment. You become so tied to this dog that you can't put the book down.

Very engaging and throroughly enjoyable.

Mr. McCaig's writing evokes the hardscrabble lot of the book's characters, human and canine, and it grips the reader's attention until the end.

Through descriptions of farm life and sheepherding trials, the author traverses excruciating pain, redeemed finally by the love a man has for his daughter and her Border Collie.

Mr. McCaig thoroughly understands Border Collies, sheepherding trials, and people. He is personally active in the sheepherd trial community; his experience imbues his story with realism.

This is a book that will tap deep into the feelings of anyone who has ever really loved a dog, which is most of us. Donald McCaig knows about border collies, their drive to do their work, their reservations about functioning as pets, and he knows quite a bit about human nature as well. The thing I liked best about this book was his translation of what the dogs were saying and thinking; the thing I liked least was the dreadful tension of hoping nothing terrible was going to happen to the aging dog, Nop, as he competed with his son. I saw McCaig work his own dog in a demonstration in Madison County, Va., before he wrote Nop's Trials, and I felt then that he had reached some truth about what he wanted to do with his life. Obviously he had, and the reality Nop and Hope have for readers is clear evidence.

This author is obviously one of the good dog people who listen to their dogs. This is the sequel to Nop's Trials. Hope is Nop's son. Lewis gave the dog to his daughter Penny to help her to recover from the death of her husband and daughter in a car accident. Penny becomes obsessed with the dog and sheepdog trials and becomes fairly successful. Wanting to be close to her, Lewis and Nop rejoin the sheepdog circuit with great success in the ring, and somewhat less with his daughter. Hope, Nop, and Lewis and his wife do well in the end, but I am disappointed in his daughter and hope that her situation will resolve itself in time.

Donald McCaig is an excellent writer. He just contributed a new introduction to "Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name," by Vicki Hearne. The whole book is worth reading, but the intro is the icing on the cake. If you are an animal trainer, an animal lover, or just a Donald McCaig fan, it's definitely worth checking out.

I purchased and read this book because my wife and I have a 2 year old border collie that we have raised from practically birth. We do not work her in herding events or agility at this time, but understand what her breed is all about. Due to this, I struggled to identify with the show events in the book, but really enjoyed the story of the bond between pet and person. Some of the story was a bit cheesy to me, but I felt overall the book was very worth reading and provided much insight into the bond with border collies and the show curcuit. I also enjoy how this book lets the dog have a voice of sorts in the book. I would recommend this book for dog lovers and especially border collie lovers such as myself.