A Pup Called Trouble
By: Bobbie Pyron / Narrated By: Kirby Heyborne
Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
>Sigh<… Turns out I can’t stand obnoxious children even if they have four legs and a tail…
Which really, if ya think about it, is nicer than what I was going to title this as: “A Pup Called Trouble/A Girl Dumber ‘N a Box of Rocks” so seeee? I’m being niiiiiice…
Cuz here’s the thing: This story is fraught with people (Even those people who happen to have fur) who do really, really dumb things. And in Trouble’s case, there’s the fact that he’s comPLETEly lacking in empathy, acts without any consideration for the feelings of others, does in fact do things he’s BEGGED not to do.
“Don’t do this, you’ll be hurt or killed!”
And naturally, Trouble does whatever.
The story has it that he was born one of four pups, the only one with his eyes already wide open and looking about curiously. But see, it’s not curiosity that gets him into trouble, it’s just that he’s a self-absorbed toad (No offense to toads!).
The biggest problem comes when his parents take him and his siblings to see Makers (humans). “Stay away from them, they’ll hurt you; you could be killed. There are so many of them, and they do bad things”
So Trouble runs off and does the stowaway thing, winds up in New York City. He whines about how hungry he is, how lonely, how afraid. A crow befriends him, looks after him. An opossum befriends him, looks after him. A fox befriends him, looks after him. An owl befriends him, looks after him. But nobody goooood is his friend, so he’s quite willing to get back to his family.
Until a sophisticated apricot poodle befriends him, then suddenly he’s all, like, Family? What family? What are you guys talking about?
And so all his friends try to show him how bad humans are, what soul-sucking places zoos are (There’s an Animal Control officer who’s trying to catch him, take him there), and the crow even brings back a piece of Home so that Trouble might smell his siblings and parents, might miss them.
Nope. Our pup Trouble doesn’t care. It takes one girl (Whom the author lazily named Amelia… I dunno, but somehow the name Amelia for little girls in books really sticks in my craw. Maybe it’s just me?) to turn everything upside down by… going out and trying to feeeeeeeed Trouble! The girl is supposed to know better than to feed wildlife, she touts herself as a Junior Explorer, and so tries to feed the forever famished Trouble in front of God and everyone in Central Park, freaking everyone in Central Park out. NOW the Animal Control officer is going to euthanize Trouble when the pup is caught, all for attacking a little girl.
The story tries to make up for the shallow main characters by having truly wonderful side characters such as Mischief the Crow, who learns to be compassionate and selfless (He has to be cuz Trouble is such a freakin’ mess) and Rosebud the Opossum, who learns to be brave and protective (She has to be cuz Trouble is such a freakin’ mess). The sweetness of those characters, however, don’t balance out what is most decidedly a story with uneven writing and a pup I wanted to pop. So sue me, I ACTUALLY grievously disliked one of Audiobook Accomplice’s weekly Animals picks.
Let’s not blame Kirby Heyborne for it; he turns in an awesome performance as always. You can’t go wrong with Heyborne, and he’s done some really good ones previously reviewed like Saving Winslow, The Long Walk, and the treMENdously well-performed Four-Four-Two. I always know, well, I always THINK I’m in for a good story when I see that he’s the narrator. This, however?
Uhm, noooooo….! Not even Kirby, dear Kirby, could save this one.
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