Book Review: 13 1/2

I'll start by saying that this book took me three days to read, so that's a good sign. I think it qualifies as one of those "beach reads," you know, a thrilling page-turner that doesn't take a whole lot of mental effort to get through. Although I did think about it a whole lot, because my major in college was criminal justice, so crime--and why people commit it-- has always been interesting to me.

I can't write a better synopsis of the book (without giving anything away) than what is given on the Amazon page for it, so you can read that here.

I think what made this book so interesting for me is the fictional look into the face of evil, but all the murders described in the book might as well be real in the world in which we live.There is a quote that comes to mind here:

"Fact is stranger than fiction. Fiction is truer than fact."

The downsides of this book: there is a "surprise" twist ending that, somewhere around the middle of the book, I was able to figure out (and I'm usually not very good at figuring out the twist), so at one point I was just reading to see if I was right. The characters themselves are not very interesting and are hard to root for. There are some gaps in knowledge about the lives of the main characters and how they got where they are that might have helped with that, if we'd been told by the author.

Overall, I recommend this book if you're looking for something quick and easy for a beach read or to pass time on a flight or something,  but not if you're looking for an amazingly well-written piece of literature.

I give it 3/5 stars.

(This was my August book, btw. I'm almost caught up! In between my last book I reviewed and this one, I also read Water for Elephants, but didn't bother to review it because most people I know have already read it and I'm just late to the game per usual.)

Book Review: The Zookeeper's Wife

The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman

Let me start off by saying that I made a New Year's resolution to read at least one book per month this year. This book was supposed to be June's book... which I ended up finishing about a week ago. So it took me June, July, and part of August to get through--not the easiest read. Don't get me wrong, the story is fascinating, and tells a part of history of which I had no previous knowledge; it's just the way it was written was a little hard to follow.

The Zookeeper's Wife is the story of the director of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan Zabinski, and his wife, Antonina. It recounts their lives as they struggle through WWII era Poland, while also helping 300 friends, neighbors, and strangers escape the clutches of the invading Nazis. After the zoo is bombed during the blitzkrieg as the Germans invaded Poland, they use the zoo, their house, and its grounds as a safe haven for anyone needing one until they could get things in order and escape the country, or move to the next safe house. 

It is told mostly from the perspective of Antonina, frequently referencing her personal diary, and also using others' memoirs, photographs, and other historical documents for reference. This allows us to view the war in a way we (or at least I) never have before: through the eyes of one distinct set of people (the Zabinski family) as they make their way through it. There are times when the author focuses solely on Antonina's accounts, her fears, her actions, that the book reads almost like a historical fiction. This is when the book is easiest to read. Reading about everything that happens to the family, the dangers Jan, Antonina, and their son face (both individually and together), left me desperately following along to find out what would happen next.

And then the author interjects. This is why the book was so hard to get into. I'm not saying that what she was interjecting had no place in the book, because the facts and historical frame that she offers to the story of the Zabinskis is important and interesting in its own right. It's the way it was done. I sometimes found myself confused and lost as to what was happening and what we were talking about. Sometimes the interjections had nothing to do with what was going on in the previous paragraph. It was really difficult to follow along with for that reason.

That being said, I still recommend the book. It is unique in the fact that it recounts the courage of one family, helping hundreds of Jews at the risk of their lives and everything they loved. A story which I am sad that I had never heard before. And there are a lot of other historical facts in the book not relating to the Zabinskis that I also previously did not know. All in all, I learned a lot and found most of it fascinating. But if you do read it, you've been warned-- the author is kind of like a squirrel with caffeine in how much she jumps around.

Do you think you would read this book? And do you have any recommendations you want to share with me? I'm always looking to add books to my reading list!

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