Other People's Pets

Starred review from May 1, 2020

DEBUT NOVEL La La Fine is an animal empath extraordinaire finally enjoying a stable life. She is in veterinary school and lives with her devoted fianc�, Clem, a chiropractor, and their loving animals, Black and Blue. But her complicated childhood catches up with her, derailing all she holds dear. Long abandoned by a cold mother who walked away while La La was drowning in an icy pond and raised by Zev, the locksmith/thief father who taught her his trades, she is drawn back into his drama when he is arrested for breaking into a home, which causes the elderly owner to tumble down the stairs--a fall he may not survive. La La takes on Zev's attorney's fees, using her empathic gifts and her housebreaking skills to steal from homes that also house animals in distress. No good can come from this plan. VERDICT Following Maizes's story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper, this debut novel brings to life a wholly original, deeply charming, and seriously flawed character whose enormous heart leads her into a mess of trouble. A beguiling tale that will make readers want to leap into the pages to save La La from herself before it's too late.--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2020
When helping dad means quitting school and committing felonies. "La La has crime in her blood as surely as the Flying Wallendas have acrobatics, and the Kennedys, politics. Maybe it's pointless to resist it. Especially now that Zev needs her." The protagonist of Maizes' first novel--after We Love Anderson Cooper (2019), a collection of short stories--is the daughter of an ill-starred family. Her mother, Elissa, who never wanted children and preferred animals to people, disappeared without a trace after a nearly fatal parenting error went large in the media. Her father, Zev, left on his own with 8-year-old La La, withdrew her from school and made her his partner in a combination locksmith/burglary operation. Like her mother, La La is passionate about animals, but with her, it goes a step farther. She is an animal empath who can actually read animals' minds and feel their aches and pains. Both parents' legacies play a positive role in early adulthood--La La's a star in veterinary school, and she meets her fiance, Clem, when she helps him break into his locked chiropractic office. But when Zev leaves his phone at the scene of a bungled job, the darker side of the family history takes hold: "It's Sunday, a good day to rob churchgoing families." Rationalizing her crimes by tending to the pets she finds locked inside the homes she breaks into, La La sacrifices almost everything in the attempt to raise legal fees for her father--and what's left gets tossed into the flames of the torch she carries for her missing mother. While its quirky combination of fictional elements and adroit, deadpan writing give the novel a wryly comedic atmosphere, La La's story is melancholy and moving. An uncanny, appealing blend of suspense, irony, tragedy, and how-to for lock-picking, burgling, and ankle monitor removal.

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May 11, 2020
Maizes’s quirky debut novel (after the collection We Love Anderson Cooper) traces the belated coming of age of La La, a 20-something veterinary student whose empathy toward animals doesn’t quite extend to her human counterparts. La La has been able to feel intensely what the animals around her experience ever since a mysterious black dog rescued her from drowning when she was eight. La La has had good reason to distrust people: her mother took off shortly after the near-drowning, and then her locksmith father, Zev, took her out of school and began training her to assist him in home burglaries, which she did until she was a teenager. When Zev is arrested in the present, she returns to burglary to raise money to pay his lawyer, justifying the crimes to herself by choosing houses where she senses pets are in trouble—until Zev wiggles his way out of house arrest and La La, who has dropped out of veterinary school, notices that her life is falling apart and resolves to form connections with humans. Despite the novel’s farfetched premise, Maizes keeps the narrative anchored in reality, with believable details about the mechanics of a burglar’s life and a large cast of well-rounded characters. This is a beguiling twist on the familiar formula of breaking unhealthy bonds with the past.

June 1, 2020
In Colorado, 1999, eight-year-old Louise La La Fine is ice skating when she falls through into the freezing water. While her mother leaves to get help, a black dog helps La La, staying with her until she's rescued. The dog runs off, but from that moment, La La is given the gift of animal empathy. Her mother leaves La La's life soon after that, forcing her father, Zev, to raise her alone. Both a locksmith and a thief, Zev teaches La La how to pick locks and break into homes. In 2015, La La is a veterinary student engaged to Clem, a chiropractor. When Zev is caught after burglary goes awry, La La is forced to go back to crime herself to pay for his attorney's fees. Because of her special gift, though, she breaks into homes in which pets are in pain, helping the ailing animals as she burgles the houses. Maizes enjoyable first novel, following the story collection We Love Anderson Cooper (2019), is creative, intriguing, and filled with lively, likeable characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)