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tarynwanderer's review against another edition
1.0
I can be bored by books, or bewildered by the author's choices, or unable to suspend my disbelief enough to buy into a story, but it's rare that I feel the visceral level of dislike that I felt while reading Ben Dolnick's debut novel Zoology.
Henry Elinsky fails his first year of college. To escape the boredom of living at home with his parents for the summer, Henry accepts his older brother's offer of a place to live in New York City and a job working at the Central Park Zoo. He ends up befriending another summer transplant, Margaret, and bonds with her as various tragedies befall them both.
Zoology is a slim novel, topping out at 300 pages, but it felt longer for me. A huge stumbling block was our "hero" himself, Henry, who is just straight-up unlikeable and not in an interesting way--in an 18-year old man-child way. I kept getting the sense that Dolnick was trying to reach for Holden Caufield-esque protagonist in Henry. But Holden, despite how you may feel about him, felt things and felt them strongly--not just about himself, but about the injustices and hypocrisies he saw in the world around him.
Henry is, by contrast, a boring sadsack. He has no sense of relativism, no curiosity, no unselfishness, no compassion. He gets angry when a girl he likes doesn't want to date him and hopes that by staying friends with her, he'll win her away from her boyfriend. (Um, respect her choice, dude; she said no.) Perhaps I've been spoiled, but the 18-year old boys I grew up with--like my brother and my boyfriend--were not like Henry at all. Thankfully.
Read the rest of this review over at Bookwanderer!
Henry Elinsky fails his first year of college. To escape the boredom of living at home with his parents for the summer, Henry accepts his older brother's offer of a place to live in New York City and a job working at the Central Park Zoo. He ends up befriending another summer transplant, Margaret, and bonds with her as various tragedies befall them both.
Zoology is a slim novel, topping out at 300 pages, but it felt longer for me. A huge stumbling block was our "hero" himself, Henry, who is just straight-up unlikeable and not in an interesting way--in an 18-year old man-child way. I kept getting the sense that Dolnick was trying to reach for Holden Caufield-esque protagonist in Henry. But Holden, despite how you may feel about him, felt things and felt them strongly--not just about himself, but about the injustices and hypocrisies he saw in the world around him.
Henry is, by contrast, a boring sadsack. He has no sense of relativism, no curiosity, no unselfishness, no compassion. He gets angry when a girl he likes doesn't want to date him and hopes that by staying friends with her, he'll win her away from her boyfriend. (Um, respect her choice, dude; she said no.) Perhaps I've been spoiled, but the 18-year old boys I grew up with--like my brother and my boyfriend--were not like Henry at all. Thankfully.
Read the rest of this review over at Bookwanderer!
mdabernig's review against another edition
2.0
I feel kinda bad only giving this two stars because it wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. The basic premise is about a young boy who goes to NY to stay with his brother the summer after he's graduated and his 'coming of age' so to speak and there is some merit in the story, just not enough to really capture you completely. There is some charm to Henry's story - his failed attempt at a music career, his work at the zoo, his friendship with his workmates, his refusal to believe his parents marriage is falling apart, his first love...
I think what lets the book down is that although it is realistic enough, there is a degree of hopelessness in the whole thing for large parts of the book. The girl he's in love with toys with him and although she is at least (mostly) honest with him from the outset, you can't help but feel frustrated on his behalf as she blows hot and cold while enjoying his advances. His parent's marriage does fall apart, his brother all but packs his bags for him...you almost want someone, anyone to just stop and cut him a break and then you remember that you are reading this from the perspective of a young guy who is a biased narrator so you're unsure how much of what we see is an emotional response from him.
Basically the whole book feels like being a teenager again where everything feels much bigger/more important than it is. This book is a bit like that - there is something there, something that could be great but something that hasn't quite found its way yet. I think I'd like to see Henry again with 10 years experience under his belt - he's a nice guy and a likeable protagonist and the scene at the end where he takes control - leaves NY, gets into college and finds something he loves was great to see. You want to see how it will shake out for him because this snap-shot, this summer where he was betwixt and between anything and everything wasn't a real representation of what he was going to be.
This is a quick read and it's good enough, I just think it could have been even better. I like that there wasn't a clichéd HEA and there were some real bright spots interwoven with everything else so it's worth a read if you have a few hours to kill.
I think what lets the book down is that although it is realistic enough, there is a degree of hopelessness in the whole thing for large parts of the book. The girl he's in love with toys with him and although she is at least (mostly) honest with him from the outset, you can't help but feel frustrated on his behalf as she blows hot and cold while enjoying his advances. His parent's marriage does fall apart, his brother all but packs his bags for him...you almost want someone, anyone to just stop and cut him a break and then you remember that you are reading this from the perspective of a young guy who is a biased narrator so you're unsure how much of what we see is an emotional response from him.
Basically the whole book feels like being a teenager again where everything feels much bigger/more important than it is. This book is a bit like that - there is something there, something that could be great but something that hasn't quite found its way yet. I think I'd like to see Henry again with 10 years experience under his belt - he's a nice guy and a likeable protagonist and the scene at the end where he takes control - leaves NY, gets into college and finds something he loves was great to see. You want to see how it will shake out for him because this snap-shot, this summer where he was betwixt and between anything and everything wasn't a real representation of what he was going to be.
This is a quick read and it's good enough, I just think it could have been even better. I like that there wasn't a clichéd HEA and there were some real bright spots interwoven with everything else so it's worth a read if you have a few hours to kill.
danielle_2910's review against another edition
3.0
3/5 - enjoyed the premise of the book and felt emotionally connected with each of the characters.
thisgrrlreads's review against another edition
3.0
Sweet, slow-moving book about an 18-year-old working as a zookeepr in NYC. He's not well-liked, he's hopelessly in love and he's stuck living in his brother's girlfriend's apartment. Yes, it's that kind of book.
caterinaanna's review
4.0
Aaah, bless!
Henry drops out of college. Goes to big city. Gets a job. Finds fulfilment working with animals. Gets messed around by a girl who wants his attention, but doesn't want to break up with her childhood sweetheart. Family falls apart around him, Makes it through all of this somehow and we leave him off to start college again somewhere new with writing having replaced his music.
So all in all a sweet little tale of an eventful summer, which is fun even though I sometimes wanted to kick Henry out of his passivity.
Henry drops out of college. Goes to big city. Gets a job. Finds fulfilment working with animals. Gets messed around by a girl who wants his attention, but doesn't want to break up with her childhood sweetheart. Family falls apart around him, Makes it through all of this somehow and we leave him off to start college again somewhere new with writing having replaced his music.
So all in all a sweet little tale of an eventful summer, which is fun even though I sometimes wanted to kick Henry out of his passivity.
vilhelmiina_h's review
4.0
Not memorable, but not as bad as other reviews led me to believe. I'd think of this as Catcher In The Rye but more modern, less whiny, and more relatable. Some really great similes that were strange but made complete sense.
dannireadsallthetime's review
2.0
This has been sitting on my book shelf for ages and I have only just managed to get round to it. Reading the blurb I thought this was going to be something a bit different to read, so I was excited.
Reading this book, personally, was painful. All the way through I kept starting a paragraph and then I'd realised I started day dreaming about other things, this book just couldn't hold my interest.
Its about a boy called Henry who goes to stay with his brother in New York for the summer and gets a job at the zoo.
Henry falls in love with a girl and in those moments that the author describes how Henry feels about her, is if I'm honest, immense, its described perfectly of how you are falling in love with someone and it can be painful, those parts I enjoyed
Towards the end everything goes wrong for poor Henry and I just feel really miserable, he just ends up worse off than he did to begin with.
I also thought the story at the end about Newman was stupid, don't understand the point of it. Maybe there is a deep meaningful point to this book that I just wasn't picking up on? Maybe?
I wouldn't read this again and I wouldn't recommend it. Very disappointing.
Reading this book, personally, was painful. All the way through I kept starting a paragraph and then I'd realised I started day dreaming about other things, this book just couldn't hold my interest.
Its about a boy called Henry who goes to stay with his brother in New York for the summer and gets a job at the zoo.
Henry falls in love with a girl and in those moments that the author describes how Henry feels about her, is if I'm honest, immense, its described perfectly of how you are falling in love with someone and it can be painful, those parts I enjoyed
Towards the end everything goes wrong for poor Henry and I just feel really miserable, he just ends up worse off than he did to begin with.
I also thought the story at the end about Newman was stupid, don't understand the point of it. Maybe there is a deep meaningful point to this book that I just wasn't picking up on? Maybe?
I wouldn't read this again and I wouldn't recommend it. Very disappointing.
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