I read this in ARC form before all the hoopla, and I had no idea what I was getting into. Turned out to be my favorite read so far this summer. It's an old-fashioned saga about a mute Wisconsin farm boy, his family of dog breeders, his special connection with his dogs, especially the captivating Almondine and Essay, a suspicious family tragedy, and winds up with an exhausting backwoods run for survival. Yeah, hype about this book now saturates the publishing world, but it's one of the rare ones that deserves all the fuss.