Jonathan has a perfect girlfriend, a decent apartment in New York, and a (soul sucking) job that pays the rent. Nonetheless, he feels like he is at a standstill, ready and waiting to fall into ‘adulthood’. While patiently anticipating this occurrence, he takes on the care of his brother’s two dogs. Sissy and Dante become his constant companions, there with a sympathetic paw or soulful look, in addition to reading his mail, gallivanting around New York unsupervised and the other fanciful things that Jonathan suspects they do. This anthropomorphising is recurrent, providing hilarious insight into the psyche of the dogs and their carer alike. When the opportunity to achieve adulthood appears, Jonathan leaps; but is it towards success or imminent doom?

A long-time fan of Meg Rosoff ’s young adult works, I received her first adult book with anticipation. The chick lit-y title and frequent dog-related puns in the blurb didn’t exactly enthral me immediately, and seemed like quite a divergence from her YA material. Plus, Jonathan is unusual to say the least. However, I found myself devouring the second half of the book at a café, frequently snorting aloud with a complete disregard for elegance and my public location. Jonathan’s odd narration is jarring to read at first, but this distance easily morphs into affection as his weirdness becomes more and more pronounced. He reminded me a little of Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and also of Don Tilman of Graham Simsion’s Rosie books; none of these characters quite belong in the world in which they inhabit, and each is each increasingly puzzled by this fact. Jonathan Unleashed is immensely satisfying in its resolution, and both fans of Rosoff’s work and new readers will be held captive by her inimitable writing style and strange yet relatable characters.

Jo Boyce