I tried reading this while I was sick and unfortunately I couldn’t get into it enough to keep going. I hate not finishing books but I just didn’t find it interesting enough.

I received an advanced copy from netgalley in exchange for a review and opinions are my own.

I think the marketing of the book with the cover and the quips about being like other popular books will help this sell, but I feel like the book was a little hard to get into. This seems for a niche audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

I DNF'd this book at about 12%. I got to the phrase "intriguing breasts" and just couldn't continue. Up to that point all the MC had done was moan and complain about her life and slack off of work because she wanted to be rich. There was nothing that made me want to continue reading.

This book was not what I was expecting...it was MORE! Not having the resources EI needs, she is lured into a world that glitzy on the surface and much darker underneath. Feral, page turning, and moments of exasperation all describe this book.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons & NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.
Chapter 1 begins with a story about a dog who loves its owner and lives a perfectly perfect life, but finds itself asking what if. What if it were better somewhere else? What if I were loved more? What if someone paid more attention to me? What if I were cared about more? Is life always so mundane and patterned? While this threw me off in the beginning, I quickly realized that this was a metaphor what was El was going through in her life. El no longer is happy with her path and being a loyal servant to someone. She wants more.
That being said, I honestly did not connect with this book like I had hoped that I would. It was a little all over the place for me. I was confused with the canine perspective for a good portion of the book. I probably should have read other review first, but I prefer to go in blind and decide for myself. A book where living on the fringe of the rich and wanting more than she has – will put of a lot of toxic vibes and that may be great for other readers. I expect this book to have a wide variety of reviews. It will have a love/hate relationship with readers.

Man's Best Friend was a quick entertaining read about the super rich in New York and those who want to be a part of that world. I was really looking forward to this one and wanted to like it more than I did. It started out promising and while I was for entertained and wanted to see how it ended I did not really connect to the main character at all. I also was a little confused about the dog story line that didn't seem to really go anywhere was hoping for a little more explanation on that. All in all was a decent read and would encourage others to try it. I want to thank NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

***Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of Man’s Best Friend .
And Thank you
***PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, for an an advanced digital ARC

I was excited for this book based on the title and was unfortunately disappointed.I found the way it was written to be very scattered and confusing. The main character El is very bland, and there is nothing about her, or her quid pro quo romance with Bryce that makes you want more of any of it . I feel the ideas were there, but the follow through and the character development was rushed and unfinished. I liked the descriptive writing used throughout allowing the reader to visualize the environmental factors surrounding the characters but needed more connection and interest in the characters themselves. I feel this writer has the absolute potential to make a really good novel , but needs to focus more on the direction of the story as well as deciding on which aspect of the story they are intending to be the most important in reference to the genre being more of a mystery, romance or just simple first person reflective journaling. With that said I look forward to future novels in hopes of getting this quality of writing along with a riveting story.

Thanks for this advance copy. I loved this book! I just read it in a day, so it's so good. If you are looking for a book to inmerse you as much as you forget about the outside world, this is it!

Even though this is a short read - I enjoyed this little bit of a popcorn thriller! When something seems like it's too good to be true, it probably is, and our heroine, El, is about to learn that lesson the hard way!

Putting yourself in the proximity and social circles of the super-rich might seem like a good idea.. but when you're no longer a part of that circle and can't keep up financially - El learns a hard lesson: she doesn't know who she is. Taking a seemingly random lifeline from a guy she's surprised is interested in her, El gets the surprise of a lifetime from what is essentially an unsuspecting Nepo baby!!

Thoughts:
- The premise of this one is fun because I absolutely love anything to do with crazy rich people. It feels so foreign, and I love reading how it plays out!
- What I didn't love is that the plot seemed a little convoluted, and the pacing was off for me. I needed more sometimes and fewer others.

**Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons & NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤

I typically enjoy the "hot mess 20-something in NY" vibes--and there was a very sinister gray-hued Emma Cline-ness to the the whole beginning of this one, which felt promising. But by the end I was left wondering what the heck the author was even trying to do here. The ending was wildly unbelievable and felt highly unsatisfying, not to mention that weird storyline about dogs that went absolutely no where and was totally unexplained? I'm really surprised that got past an editor, tbh. I'd be interested to see what this author releases in the future but this felt very much like an amateurish debut that needed more work.

I think the foundation of an intriguing perspective is here but it needs help in connecting all of the tangential threads. There's simply too many implied meanings behind the protagonist's actions, especially in the last 150 pages or so of the book that leave you feeling tossed about and then hung up to dry. I don't need my plot points spoon fed to me, in fact I appreciate an author who allows their audience to interpret meaning... to a reasonable degree. It's believable that El would do what she did in the end but it's completely insane to expect that everyone around her, especially Bryce, would allow her to just ride her golden ticket off into the sunset without protest. Nope, no way. If there are concrete reasons why she is suddenly able to wield such power over Bryce, Julia, their circles etc. merely by connecting dots to Bryce's psychopathy, then I missed it completely.

The random details about everyone's dogs suddenly running away felt lazy and confusing. I get it... the tie-in is a metaphor for the psychological journey El is taking. She's no longer anyone's loyal, subservient companion. Hence the title of the book. But you can't flippantly introduce an odd, almost supernatural element into the mix and then not expand on it a bit more. Either own it fully or don't include it at all.

Aside from punctuation corrections and some overall cleanup for smoother grammar, there was only one error I noticed: on page 197, it says "Bryce's Brita pitcher" when it should say "Ansel's".

I was lucky enough to win an e-ARC of MAN'S BEST FRIEND by Alana B. Lytle through a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe and happy Valentine's Day!

A unique style of writing. I went into this with an open mind, but I just did not connect with the story's characters like I hoped to. I think the book will find the right audience though and do well. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks NetGalley for an advanced copy of this title. While this was not necessarily my favorite read, I felt like the author did have a good style. I struggled with how the story flowed, however, and how unlikeable the characters were. While the toxic characters were intentional, I was unable to connect with them and truly care about how the events of the story affected them. This is not to say that the story was poorly written or that it may not work for others; I just wasn’t able to take much from it. I still feel it deserves three stars because it was well written. Also, I do appreciate the opportunity to be able to read and review this title!

When I read that this novel was similar to "The Talented Mr. Ripley", I couldn't wait to read it. However Ripley was a character study which was focused and moved steadily towards a certain end. This book was kind of all over the place with the thriller aspects not appearing until late in the book. This is about a woman named El. El lives in the Williamsburg section of New York and is very unhappy with her life. She wanted to be an actress at one time but now at age 29 she is working at a bakery and feels like her chances to become famous have past. El is not very likable; she is rude to her roommate and her other friends and wants to hang out with her friends Anna and Julia only because they are wealthy. El herself grew up in a lower middle class home and when she got a scholarship to an expensive school for eighth grade she was taken in by Anna and Julia and now she hangs around them in order to go to parties and to a vacation house in the Hamptons.

At such a party, El meets a man named Bryce. She is not attracted to Bryce, but he appears to be rich and connected and when he offers to return her driver's license she left behind, the two begin a relationship. Once she is living with Bryce she finds he has a history of women he knows coming up dead and she tries to tell herself this is not something to do with Bryce himself. The book also has a strange running theme which is kind of science fiction by nature about dogs running away from their masters and becoming wild. I assume this is supposed to be symbolic of El in some way but it wasn't done well and just didn't make sense. The author also went into various side stories that veered away from the main mystery and just weren't interesting such as a story about the owners of a restaurant who needed money to keep going and a subplot involving a young man who was taken in by El's mother. I think the novel would have been better to leave out the dog stories and focus more on El's early life and to somehow give the readers a clue as to why she makes the decisions she does. The ending was somewhat unbelievable to me and I didn't have much of a reaction to El's decisions at that point. Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

Despite an intriguing title, this book fails to deliver on its promise of canine perspectives, leaving readers confused. Sparse and troubling depictions of dog involvement and toxic relationships detract from the narrative. While some may find it engaging, others may be left unsatisfied by its convoluted exploration of toxic dynamics. Proceed with caution, as this book's appeal may vary greatly among readers.

El has failed in her dream to become an actress. She has always been on the fringe of the rich life. When she meets Bryce, she thinks all her dreams are coming true. Trips to Paris, black card luxuries,living in a NewYork loft etc..but what will she do when she finds out that Bryce has a darker side.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my opinion.

This book is hard to review because it was exactly what I expected from the name and the cover. Is well written with a very organised structure and the characters are well created. But it become a bit predictive for me because in the middle of the book I felt it started become boring. But I did enjoy read it and I think some people may enjoy it a little bit more. Big shout out to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for ARC

This is a hard one to review. The writing was good, but I disliked the characters and didn't find the main storyline interesting. The book begins and ends with dog-related dreams that didn't seem to tie in to the main story, though it's certainly possible I missed a connection. Also, the synopsis and cover made it look like a thriller (although it's not characterized as one) but it didn't read like that to me. It's more Bret Easton Ellis lite. Overall, a bit of a muddle, I fear.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This was a DNF for me -- I love a bad girl doing bad things, and I love an unreliable narrator, but this felt like a poor execution of the formats made popular by Brett Easton Ellis or Chad Kultgen, with relentless brand drops, tedious scenes of drugs, and meaningless hook-ups. I was bored and didn't have connections to any of the characters, so I stopped at 35%.