Ape House

A Novel

By: Sara Gruen

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships - but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets - especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans...until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest - and unlikeliest - phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda. Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.

©2010 Sara Gruen (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"While the set-up may sound improbable, Gruen’s characters – both human and ape – are finely drawn and ultimately believable. Gruen’s research into the use of American Sign Language as a means of communicating with the bonobos informs her story (and the reader) without weighing it down. This is a satisfying, entertaining page-turner of a novel." ( San Francisco Book Review)

Painful

A good narrator can make a bad book more interesting. Bad narration can make an iffy book unbearable. This one falls into the latter category.

Elephants=outstanding... Apes=Rubbish!!!

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I cannot stress how dissappointing this book was! Water for elephants is in my top ten and I was looking forward to this story, but I wish I never wasted my time! The characters are weak, story predictable and lack luster, and narrrator annoying. I had to force myself to finish it. Need I say more?

Disappointing

Like others have said, if you are buying this based on the strength of Water for Elephants (as I was), then skip it. It's just another average novel with apes as the hook. Just a few minutes into it I had a feeling it was never going to measure up to Gruen's first book but I kept hoping it would get better.

I did not care for the narrator, especially when he made all of the younger characters in the story sound like Snake from the Simpsons. What kind of a weird accent is that anyway? There is too much needless detail about things unimportant to the story, and too much buildup to an anticlimactic ending. I'm always interested in human animal communication and I liked that aspect, but the overall story wasn't at all what I thought it would be. I hope Gruen writes something else like her first novel as that is right up there with my favorite books.

Disappointed as well

I agree with many of the other low reviews, this book doesn't hold a candle to "Water for Elephants", almost seems like it was from another author. The characters cut from cardboard, the narrative predictable and trite - I could listen with "one ear" and still follow it because I knew where we were going. Gruen relies heavily on characters cut from cloth that's familiar to the reader and props them up with insipid dialogue. The story is interesting in a Michael Crichton-esque way, but doesn't even have his writing ability behind it (and that's saying something).