Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 425 ratings

Price: 13.12

Last update: 04-13-2025


About this item

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

From best-selling author of She's Not There, New York Times opinion columnist, and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs.

This is a book about dogs: The love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been.

It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me.

There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror.

But I remember the dogs.

In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking piece went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never is: Finding and giving love.

Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable story: Showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman - accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. "Everything I know about love," she writes, "I learned from dogs." Their love enables us pull off what seem like impossible feats: To find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.


Top reviews from the United States

  • suzy hallock-bannigan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Dogs and People
    Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2025
    If you treasured “A Life in Two Genders,” this will be a meaningful read for you. A pioneer voice for the trans community, Boylan writes well, has great humor, and every now and then writes a punch! Some moments are so poignant, if you have empathy, they will bring tears to your eyes. This is a good and fast read and takes the reader from her family of origin through to the family she and her spouse have made.
  • L. Beyer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but disjointed
    Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2022
    I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't as much about dogs as I hoped. And the timeline is all over the place.
  • AJ McLaughlin
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Heartfelt Tale of Love and Acceptance
    Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2023
    Full disclosure, I was asked to read this by a friend of my grandmother's, who is a former student of Ms. Boylan's. (She wanted my opinion as someone younger and transmasc.) However, I am very glad that I did. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, but always poignant, it is not only a story of someone growing up with feelings of being trans, but also a frank but also nostalgic look at one's past. I found myself sharing lines and passages with my friends, trans and cis, as I was reading, and yes, I shared a portion with my grandmother. I even recommended it to at least two friends before I completed reading it. The only part of it that brought me down was it ends with her reflecting on things possibly being better for trans people now thanks to her activism. I am sure that they are, and I am not invalidating Ms. Boylan's hard work, but seeing her be so optimistic when she wrote/published this (which was only two or three years ago, by the publication date) compared to how things are now for trans people was a depressing contrast. Hardly her fault, just a crushing return to reality.
  • Gracie Allen
    5.0 out of 5 stars A welcome companion in the night
    Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2021
    Jennifer Boylan has again brought her re!remarkable journey down to earth t through a series of vignettes framed by her relationships with a succession of the dogs in her life. But, of course the adventures and misadventures serve as background to the mundane and extraordinary experiences and feelings of one who longed for and finally lived her true identity. She again kept me company during sleepless nights.

    Though transgender myself, also blessed to have my life partner to continue our marriage approaching 55 years , I find new facets in Jennifer's story which again resonate. She gives voice to us, as disparate as we are, perhaps to convey to others how mundane, and at times, how extraordinary our experiences are. Her gentle humor is such a welcome relief and balm to restless minds. In her relationships with family and friends, those with two legs and with four, we see the way to draw joy and wonder from normal, everyday events.

    It is humbling to review an accomplished author and major force in articulating the humanity of the transgender community. But, though each of our experiences is unique, Jennifer offers so many instances that resonate with my own experience. So, again, especially as added to She's Not There, I will suggest this book to friends who wish to gain insights into aspects of our world. She is a worthy companion to the late Jan Morris and I thank her for her company in the night.
  • Michael May
    3.0 out of 5 stars Ok book
    Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2020
    Good story, just dragged on.
  • H. Williams
    5.0 out of 5 stars A charming and uniquely told story: growing up, living w dogs, getting married, and a gender change
    Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2020
    I’ll confess. I was a little hesitant to read “Good Boy." I knew the outline of Jennifer’s life and her memoir writing style, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. When I was a teenager, I loved my Saint Bernard, “Fearless,” and consider my learning to take care of him a major milestone in my life. but I didn’t want to recall losing him again while I read “Good Boy.”

    I shouldn’t have worried. “Good Boy,” is charming, humorous, and full of great stories. While the death of most of her dogs is noticed, it’s the music, emotional center, life stories, singing, celebrations, and recalling of overlapping events and passions that make it such a remarkable read. I’m very happy to have read it and recalled my "Fearless" again as a major touchstone in my life.
  • michelle
    4.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly Moving
    Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2020
    I came into this book blind. I don't read the NYT and I'd never heard of Jennifer Finney Boylan. But the book has a black lab on the cover, and black labs are my weakness, so I took a peek at the First Look. I couldn't be more grateful that I did. I loved the writing style and I giggled often, so much so that this book became the very first that I claimed with my points. When I cracked my copy open, I expected a light-hearted and humorous memoir about the author's life with dogs. Well.....it's that, true. But it is so much more. This book has a depth I never expected to find. While I laughed out loud numerous times, I also cried more than once. Boylan's journey is profoundly heartbreaking. Many people (me included) are unable to understand what a transgender person has to deal with in their life. This book is an intimate look at how Jennifer grew from a young boy, who knew without a doubt that "you are not you" for most if not all of his/her life. When she sat by the pool as a young boy, with a dull knife in her hand, envisioning her end, it broke my heart. No one should ever feel that way because they are so uncomfortable in their skin. Boylan often mentioned how in the world of men, there is a code of silence and emotions are not expressed, at least not verbally. I found it ironic that this book kind of does the same thing. She deflects that sadness and the pain that she endured by lighthearted humor and an impeccable wit. But beneath the surface there is an ocean of pain too deep to dive. Even the title of the book is more than it might initially appear. That title isn't about the 7 dogs she shared her life with....it's about that little boy whose father described him as "not much" after birth.

    For as deeply moving as this book is on a deeper level, it is also refreshingly funny. I loved Boylan's manner of describing her dogs' thoughts and emotions and the many conversations she'd have with them. She describes these dogs so vividly and captures their personalities so well that I feel like I know them. When she described the metamorphosis of her relationship with Penny/Sausage, I cried more than a few tears. She says "I had loved my sad, gelatinous dog with all my heart, for years and years....But then one by one, I put the things of my childhood aside, and Penny was one of them. I held her in my arms, as if she were already gone, as if all these days had long since become a distant memory." That recollection was so painful for me to read, both for the dog being left behind (emotionally) and for the childhood that was lost.

    This book was a fantastic read. I have never chosen a memoir by a person that I was unfamiliar with. But this book is so well written, so endearing, and so important that I could not pass it up. I think everyone should read a book like this, to understand how a transgender person moves through the world. The pain they suffer because of who they are, the confusion they feel as they try to sort out their feelings, and the feeling of never quite belonging. Boylan describes herself as an immigrant from the land of "Man," arriving on the shores of "Woman" with all of the privilege of her former life, but also all of the pain. I know that I, for one, am sure glad she made the journey and chose to share it with the world.

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