The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

When I read the discription for the book, I was intrigued..animals, WWII, Hiding Jews from the Nazi's in the Zoo, well it sounded both fascinating and moving. I was wrong. First, the narrator was horrendous. Each time there was a quotation from the Zookeeper's Wife (this is a factual account drawn from diaries, it seems, possibly interviews with family), the narrator switched to the worst Eastern European accent I have ever heard. She'd perhaps been watching too many B vampire movies, trying to form her Polish accent. When she would switch back to her natural voice, the "Euopean" would drag for a few syllables, very distracting.
The story wasn't all that interesting either. It read more like a Ph.d thesis on the stresses of war-time than a novel. The revolutionary actions of her husband are hardly discussed at all. She mostly is the "heart of the home", which in Poland apparently means she irons, cooks and cleans. A lot. Yes, we are privy to all of her feelings, but she is of course deeply depressed. I stuck through this, but only because I kept waiting for action. There was very little. Oh, do not expect lots of adorable animal stories either, as they are all either confiscated or killed before you get 10 minutes into the book. Rather graphically. The killing of an elephant was for me very disturbing. What kind of "pick" this was I cannot say..but I can say, sadly, is do not Pick.

This book will probably win literary awards since the writing is excelent and the language is beautiful. That being said, the story itself is very slow moving and I was never able to really feel a connection with the characters. Given the subject matter, I expected some degree of suspense, but it never developed. Some chapters were totally descriptive and interrupted the story line completely. While the reader does a really good job, the presentation is so lyrical it becomes monotonous. Perhaps an abridged version would be a better choice.

I was very disappointed in this book. The story had great potential and was apparently based on the memoirs of people who lived through the experience. However, I found the author's style frustrating and the narrator's annoying. While the story is supposed to be about "The Zookeeper's Wife", it is really a series of vignettes about many people and events. There are multiple digressions into unrelated material and pedantic source references throughout. The author frequently just lists, jobs, vehicles, animals and events rather than including them in the story. The narrator slides from her own voice into a wistful Polish accent in a rather random way - even in mid-sentence to indicate a quote. If you are interested in a story about Warsaw during the war, there are many better books available that give credit to the courage and tenacity of the resistance.

I could just not get into this book. It was like a world history class text book. I kept waiting for the story to begin while wading through pages and pages of explicit descriptions of beetles. It was so tedious and boring that I finally gave up which I rarely do. I will usually read a book until the bitter end even if I don't like it, just to keep it from beating me. I know it is a very compelling subject, but this book was not for me.

The flow of the book was a little disjointed as the information was taken from journals and historical documents. It was very interesting, however, and made me have great respect for the 'rescuers' and their bravery. The reader did a good job with lots of different accents.

An unbelievably rich way to approach a horrific period in human history - the German occupation of Poland and the systematic killing of the Jewish citizens of that country. The narrator performed this story in a beautiful, sometimes humourous and always gentle way. I highly recommend this book.

I have not read the print version. I preferred the audio.

The Zookeepers's wife was a remarkable woman who kept her family, relatives and friends--even strangers who asked for help--safe with her level-headedness, compassion, and inner strength.

No.

Moments in the book where their little boy, Rich, had to deal with things he could not understand. He reacted as a child but was obedient. He had good questions but they could not always share the real answers with him. He trusted his parents.

no.

The guts of the characters

?

the accent was amazing

when the son and mother thought they were going to be shot

It was one more point of view about the Holocaust that helps me to see more into a nightmare. I liked seeing it from a Polish perspective.
I loved seeing it through the eyes of the zoo and the animals.

This book was very well researched and detailed. If you are looking for an expository book with details on the antics of zoo animals and details on 30 beetles found in a collection..., this is the book for you. It did have some good details on the lives of the Jews in the Polish ghetto. I was looking for a more plot-driven novel, so I put this book aside after about 1/2 of the book. A disappointment for me.

I must have missed a crucial point in the book. I kept waiting to see if this was more of a memoir or a story. I have read a lot of books about the horrors of Hitler's rein of terror, but this one just didn't settle down and tell me the story, it kept flipping back and forth between what was later said and what was happening. I was lost sad to say.