Marley and Me is a New York Times bestselling novel about a young newlywed couple and their journey through adopting a lovable, labrador retriever. The author himself, John Grogan, and his wife, Jenny Grogan, are both journalists writing for the newspaper. Jenny and John are contemplating whether or not they wanted to have kids and decide that they want to brush up on their parental skills by adopting a retriever and getting the feel for having to take care of something animate. They immediately fall in love with their dog they name Marley and agree about two or three weeks later that they now felt confident with their caretaking abilities and decide to start having kids. The family begins to grow over the next couple of years and their life with their rambunctious dog begins to get rough. Marley becomes incredibly disobedient and starts to drive their family insane. He, according to John Grogan, is “the best worst dog in the world.” Within the novel Marley and Me, Marley fails to “get the idea” of what humans expect from him and does whatever pleases him. It reaches the point to where he was kicked out of obedience school. Although, throughout the story there was multiple times where they dog really came through for their family and showed how incredibly loyal some dogs can be. The dog showed his loyalty through situations when the family was upset with someone or something hadn’t gone the way they planned, he was there to support them using everything he could physically do as a dog. This basically demonstrates the overall theme of the novel which is how Marley would rise to any occasion to love and protect the family from anything that would ever try to hurt them. Marley does not continuously show his emotions toward the family but is always there when he needs them most.
This novel would probably mainly appeal to young adults who are going through similar situations in life because it would be easier for them to relate since some of these situations probably cannot relate to the average teenager. Marley and Me in my opinion definitely is a five star book. I thought it was very well written because they were real life situations that could happen on a day to day basis. John Grogan did a very good job explaining everything in full details so that the reader could really get a clear picture on what was happening throughout their lives.
In my opinion there were many can’t miss moments throughout this novel. In one specific situation it dealt with when Marley’s instincts really pulled through for someone’s safety. Marley heard a slight noise outside that sounded like a scream coming from the neighbors house. So, it appeared to him that he should inform his family about it because he had a bad feeling that something was not right. After Marley heard the faint scream coming from the neighbors house he began barking uncontrollably signaling to the author, John Grogan, and his wife that they needed to go outside and find out what was happening. The two of them listened to Marley’s signal and went outside to find their neighbor in a very dangerous situation. She was stabbed by a someone trying to rob her house as she was getting out of the car. Thankfully, Marley was able to recognize the sound of her scream, which meant that this young girl was in trouble and he was able to get her help by notifying his family so that they could get her to safety.
A symbol that could portray Marley’s loyalty shown throughout the novel could be a crown. In my opinion, a crown demonstrates complete loyalty because it shows that someone who wears the crown, has loyalty in order to be wearing it. For example, a king would be one to wear a crown because he was taken leadership within a kingdom. In order to do this, or be successful, one has to stay loyal to his people and do anything he is suppose to do to protect them in any way. I think Marley definitely portrays loyalty first of all because he is a dog and even though he misbehaves throughout the story he truly is there for their family through thick and thin. He is there by their side when something doesn’t go right. For instance, when the wife, Jenny was pregnant with her first child, she went in to get checked up and found that she had a miscarriage. As soon as he walked through the door when she got home, Marley could tell that something did not seem right so he stayed by her side and comforted her.