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A review by mac_12
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
3.0
Reader, beware!
If you, like me, picked up this book expecting a story, based on the true life of a real WWII Zookeeper's wife, put the book down for a second.
Really!
Put it down and take a second to re-calibrate before you dive into it.
I initially wanted to rate this a 1 star because it was so far from what I expected based on the synopsis I read and that made it very hard to get into. Reading the back cover, you're led to believe you're reading historical fiction based on a true story and that the book will read like a novel (that's what I assumed, at least). But you don't get that and if that's what you want to read, you might have a hard time with this. While you do get the story of the Zabinski family and their efforts to save their neighbors and themselves during WWII, the book is not presented in a true narrative form. Rather than reading like a novel, it reads like an intense research project.
But that's not a bad thing.
The author is thorough and clearly researched everything she could to inform her understanding of the world and motives of people that came into contact with the Zabinski family. She presents information on the history and back-breeding of animals and plants as it was pertinent to Nazi agendas, for example, and while that wasn't intrinsically linked to the family at the heart of the book, it was a fascinating bit of information that brought the WWII era a bit more to life and taught me something new. There is something of historical fiction style writing in the way Ackerman weaves pieces of her source material (like memoirs and letters) together and how she fills in the blanks in the day to day business of the story but it does not read like a novel. Furthermore, while the bulk of the text does focus on Mrs. Zabinski and uses her memoir heavily, the book itself is not really her story as much as it is her family's, her home's and her city's.
It is how thoroughly the topic and people were researched and how, for the most part, accessibly the information was presented that made me keep going and ended in a 3 star review. I like to read research books and learn about different times in history through various lenses so I was able to continue with this once I gave up the idea that it was a novel. I'm not sure that the average reader in search of a WWII novel would have the same experience. If you want something that reads like All the Light We Cannot See or Salt to the Sea, you're not going to find it within this book. You might learn something new if you stick with it though.
If you, like me, picked up this book expecting a story, based on the true life of a real WWII Zookeeper's wife, put the book down for a second.
Really!
Put it down and take a second to re-calibrate before you dive into it.
I initially wanted to rate this a 1 star because it was so far from what I expected based on the synopsis I read and that made it very hard to get into. Reading the back cover, you're led to believe you're reading historical fiction based on a true story and that the book will read like a novel (that's what I assumed, at least). But you don't get that and if that's what you want to read, you might have a hard time with this. While you do get the story of the Zabinski family and their efforts to save their neighbors and themselves during WWII, the book is not presented in a true narrative form. Rather than reading like a novel, it reads like an intense research project.
But that's not a bad thing.
The author is thorough and clearly researched everything she could to inform her understanding of the world and motives of people that came into contact with the Zabinski family. She presents information on the history and back-breeding of animals and plants as it was pertinent to Nazi agendas, for example, and while that wasn't intrinsically linked to the family at the heart of the book, it was a fascinating bit of information that brought the WWII era a bit more to life and taught me something new. There is something of historical fiction style writing in the way Ackerman weaves pieces of her source material (like memoirs and letters) together and how she fills in the blanks in the day to day business of the story but it does not read like a novel. Furthermore, while the bulk of the text does focus on Mrs. Zabinski and uses her memoir heavily, the book itself is not really her story as much as it is her family's, her home's and her city's.
It is how thoroughly the topic and people were researched and how, for the most part, accessibly the information was presented that made me keep going and ended in a 3 star review. I like to read research books and learn about different times in history through various lenses so I was able to continue with this once I gave up the idea that it was a novel. I'm not sure that the average reader in search of a WWII novel would have the same experience. If you want something that reads like All the Light We Cannot See or Salt to the Sea, you're not going to find it within this book. You might learn something new if you stick with it though.