Red-Haired Ash Reads

“The love the animals gave will never be forgotten.”

This was a beautifully written book about the love people hold for their pets and how we deal with their deaths. Paul Koudounaris photographs and research into pet cemeteries really shows a whole new side of love and grief that most people don’t think about. 

The stories and photographs in this book are captivating, not just because they show the depths of people’s love for their pets and their grief over the loss, but also because of the lives these animals lived. I was captivated from the very beginning of this book with the stories of these animals, some famous, some not. Their stories were fascinating and really showed a whole new side of history that I never considered before. 

While the majority of the animals in this book are cats and dogs, we also see other critters as well, some of which I was surprised by. Koudounaris does a fantastic job with this book and I really love the animal stories he was able to pack into 250 pages. 

This was a fantastic book that made me reevaluate history, grief, and my own pets’ mortality and what I might want for them. Also while this whole book deals with grief and loss, it never felt depressing or weighed down by this heavy topic. 

TW: animal deaths described; animal cruelty; grief; suicide (pg. 137); animal poisoning;

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