Zoo Story
Zoo Story is a great book. I highly recommend it.
The true story of the Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida with plenty of novel-like flourishes. In fact, the most annoying thing, and what keeps this book from being truly wonderful is the heavy-handed human to animal comparison vignettes. Otherwise, the story of the rise and fall of the Director of the zoo is really compelling. The author really delves into the thoughts and actions of a number of people, giving the book a lot more depth.
The author is a reporter, with a reporter's eye and ear. That was wonderful. The writing to make more of a novel-like story was a little bumpy, but overall the combination worked.
I loved the exploration of the animals. The author did a great job of giving the stories of the animals while maintaining the distance and realization that we don't truly understand. The author also found the human stories inherent in the animals' stories and with a zoo, this is exactly right and keeps the book from veering off one side of the zoo debate or the other.
The author actually does a really good job of addressing the zoo debate, taking into account the mixed feelings of those who work at the zoo.
Zoo Story is a good read and an enjoyable story.
