Alex Reeve, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Sometimes, being a dog — free to roam and sniff and run as you please — is easier than being a girl, always being monitored, with expectations of domesticity and meekness heavy on your shoulders.

Xenobe Purvis’ eerie “The Hounding” is the story of the five Mansfield sisters, whom the villagers of Little Nettlebed have pegged as literal dogs; there are even a couple of not-so-trustworthy eye witnesses to the “fact” of their human-to-dog transformation.

As opposed to hearing the girls tell their own story, we see it unfold through the eyes of five villagers: four men and one woman. I thought it was really interesting that we never get the girls’ perspectives — if not a little obvious as to the messaging of the book, which is that their perspectives a

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