Book Review: Toto

I was mostly a Good Dog until they sold me out to animal control, okay? But if it’s a choice between Oz, with its creepy little singing dudes, and being behind bars in gray old Kansas, I’ll choose the place where animals talk and run the show for now, thanks.

It’s not my fault that the kid is stuck here too, or that she stumbled into a tug-of-war over a pair of slippers that don’t even taste good. Now one witch in good eyeliner calls her pretty and we’re off on a quest? Teenagers. I try to tell her she’s falling in with the wrong crowd when she befriends a freaking hedge wizard made of straw, that blue jay with revolutionary aspirations, and the walking tin can. Still, I’m not one to judge when there’s the small matter of a coup in the Forest Kingdom.

Look, something really stinks in Oz, and this Wizard guy and the witches positively reek of it. As usual, it’s going to be up to a sensible little dog to do a big dog’s job and get to the bottom of it. And trust me: Little dogs can get away with anything.

Toto by A.J. Hackwith will be published November 12, 2024. Berkley Publishing Group provided an early galley for review.

I was not familiar with Hackwith's earlier works (three novels in the Hell's Library series), so jumping in on their first standalone novel where they take a page out of Gregory Macguire's playbook (i.e. doing a reinterpretation of an Oz story) felt like a safe starting place. From a very young age, I was a fan of the enchanting world created by Frank L. Baum anyway. So, why not?

Right out of the gate, the reader gets enough details to tell this one hundred and twenty-four year old tale has been brought into the 21st Century (thanks to the original material being long out of copyright bounds). Like the original tale was a reflective commentary of the times, Toto touches upon elements of pop culture, social media and political trends. It could have gone harder though, really brining this into the 21st Century.

Giving us the story from a dog's perspective is certainly novel. However, this particular narrative view can be a double-edged sword. Every situation and interaction comes from the lens of the pet protagonist, albeit a rather smarter one thanks to effects of the magical land Toto and Dorothy find themselves in. But it is a dog's interpretation and thus ultimately a bit limited. Also, in the original story Toto tends to be more of an observer so I feared his role would be limited in a similar capacity here. Turns out, here he's right in the center of everything that happens, but I still felt that he was more of an observer and commentator.

And that's really what had me losing focus several times. I felt like I was missing the depth of the other characters. They came across as flat, one-dimensional and at times uninteresting.

The more I wanted from a retelling/reimagining just wasn't there.