Great Fun and Good Feelings in Chihuahua Karma

Chihuahua Karma by Debby Rice is a great feel-good read that made me laugh out loud, tugged at my heart-strings, and left me smiling. Available only as an E-book, Rice’s lively, incisive, and addictive writing makes buying an E-reader a good idea (alongside previously reviewed E-books like Minks Rises by Eric Almeida and The View From Here by Rachel Howzell — I’m looking forward to reading Howzell’s latest, No One Knows You’re Here, just downloaded!).

Cherry Paget is young, beautiful, and rich — but all that changes one lovely summer day, when Cherry takes a fall and ends up as a dog. The possibility of reincarnation has been entertained for centuries (as demonstrated by the quotes that begin every chapter, by everyone from Ben Franklin to Paul Gauguin to Voltaire to Leonardo da Vinci) but rarely has it been as entertaining as in Chihuahua Karma. Cherry didn’t make the best choices as a woman (she is not entirely to blame, given the advice she got from her mom: “Don’t waste all that time in law school. Take the modeling job. That underwear catalogue is a stepping stone…”) but as a dog, she matures into a caring human being, more concerned with how she can help a little girl escape the clutches of deranged adults than her previous concerns of couture and vodka and “nails manicured to the buff and shine of a newborn Porsche”. Cherry-as-dog has to battle not only living adults in her quest to help those in need but dead souls waiting for their new bodies and willing to wreak havoc until the next incarnation.

All’s well that ends well, and the passage — spiritual and physical — trip to ending well is twisted, unpredictable, and hilarious. Align yourself with Chihuahua Karma and find greater meaning in the dogs — and humans — in your life.