Mountainside Mutts Book Club (April) Review:
Never Leave the Dogs Behind: A Memoir by Brianna Madia

Mountainside Mutts Book Club Review Rating: 🦴🦴

The plot line was promising: a woman getting over a tough break-up moves to the Utah desert to live in a trailer with her dogs. A woman’s struggle, Moab & mesas, and the dogs…..It should have been so good. Our April selection was a bit of a let-down in my view. An easy read for sure but the “fluffiest” book we’ve picked. “All show and no go”.

Part of the problem for me was that I didn’t really empathize with the author. Turns out she had been making a good living selling her story on Instagram as an “Influencer”. Sharing all and getting free goods to promote companies’ products, life had clearly been pretty good for Brianna Madia. I’ll confess, I’d never heard of her before we chose to read this book. Apparently she had another one – detailing the good times. This one starts shortly after a split with her husband and an accident involving one of the dogs which the book never fully addresses. Her previous loyal followers start turning on her. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think anyone deserves the level of online nastiness and social media toxicity she clearly had to endure, but you can’t help but think “You did put your life online for all to see”.  I also couldn’t help but think she was a sponge on the kindness of people who wanted to help. But like a train going off the rails she bashes her way through friends and acquaintances before deciding to purchase a piece of land in the middle of nowhere. 

One of the few points in the book on which I do agree with her is that she clearly wasn’t thinking logically. She took compulsive actions without really thinking them through. For example, taking 4 dogs to live in a metal box in the middle of Moab without access to fresh running water. She made the sensible decision at least of leaving her 2 boas elsewhere but again – shirking off her responsibility in order to follow the next shiny object.

There are snippets of both the bizarre and the beautiful of Moab. It is unforgiving land and I don’t fail to marvel at people who do make a life in the middle of the hostile environment. A few years back I was brought to tears when my husband took my work-owned Toyota from a tarmac road, to a dirt road, to essentially no road going up and over one of the mesas from River Road over to “Base Camp Adventures”. The owner was quick to size us up accurately – no, he wasn’t going to let us wander in the canyons alone. I am grateful to him for that. From vast and dry with everything you own covered in a thick coat of dust, to raging floodwaters, the landscape can change rapidly when the rain comes. As it does in the book. Sadly, there is little real exploration of these areas in the book. Mainly, it is an exploration of why people no longer like the author and ultimately, why she doesn’t care. Good on her. A great writer could retell an entirely different tale of a desert journey of self discovery. One that would be much more compelling. This one though was about as shallow as the influencer who wrote it.

After reading the book I decided to look the author up on Instagram. Perhaps that was a mistake. I found what she found funny, annoying. Perhaps I’m too old. Maybe I’m slightly jealous. It just seems so unbelievable that there are many people making good money from sharing their antics through posts and reels. 

This is the kind of book that you’ll read in a holiday cabin without internet. Someone left a copy. You read it in 2 days. And leave it for someone else. Within a month you’ll probably forget you ever read it. 

I vote 2 bones – someone put time into writing it and that is commitment I admire. It’s an easy read with a few entertaining parts. But don’t expect anything more.

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Next Up:

Do you live in Rutland, Vermont and love books about nature? Our book club meets approximately every 6 weeks. What unites our members is a love for the animals and the natural world around us. Come join us.

Mountainside Mutts Book Club  selection (June) is: Away to me by Patricia McConnell We’ll meet at 6pm on 3 June, 2026. We’d love to have you join the discussion. You can even join via Zoom. Find us on the Book Clubs App or email: als@mountainsidemutts.com for further information.