YMMV / Dear Mr. Henshaw

• Angst? What Angst?: Leigh gets over Dad getting Bandit instead of him in the span of about fifteen seconds. It's kinda-sorta justified in that Leigh wants his dad to be happy, and also wants Bandit to be happy, but still...
• First Installment Wins: The sequel, Strider, is much, much less well known than the original novel; it won no awards at all.
• Protagonist Title Fallacy: Leigh is the novel's protagonist, with Mr. Henshaw being more of a device to move the plot along than anything.
• Retroactive Recognition: Pedro Pascal recorded audiobooks for both Dear Mr. Henshaw and Strider, years before starring in such works as Narcos and The Mandalorian.
• Sequelitis: Again, the decidedly mediocre Strider.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Leigh's parents deciding not to get back together at the end, especially considering that Leigh really hoped they would.
  • The scene with "the Pizza Boy". The ambiguity only makes it worse, not better.
  • Leigh not getting to keep Bandit at the end, even if it was his own idea, and he was pretty chill about it.
• The Woobie: Leigh, oh so much. Bonnie counts as well, as she's obviously distraught over how her relationship with Bill turned out.