Other People's Pets by R.L. Maizes

 

Other People’s Pets by R.L. Maizes

304 pages

★★★

La La is an animal empath, so she can feel what any animal around her feels and uses that to become a veterinarian. Her mother abandoned them when she was young and her father is a thief disguised as a locksmith, so she has never had the most stable life. When her father gets arrested during one of his “jobs,” La La has to follow in her father’s footsteps in order to pay for his lawyer and other bills, but she uses her empathic abilities to justify breaking into houses by helping the animals in pain.

This was an interesting read but I felt too separate and didn’t explain the magical realism enough. La La hid her empathic abilities but the book also treated it like something normal at the same time. It was also unnecessarily sad throughout the whole book, putting misfortune on top of misfortune onto La La who did nothing to deserve it. I just wanted one good thing to happen for her the entire time and it never did.