Ape House- Sara Gruen

Considering that Water for Elephants is one of my favorite books of all time, I’m still a little surprised that it took me a year to get to Sara Gruen’s follow-up. The fact is, it did not get great reviews. And since I base a lot of my book selections on Amazon reviews and star ratings, maybe that explains it. I’m glad I decided to ignore them in the end though, I’m not sure why it hasn’t been doing well. There are lots of criticisms that Gruen did not develop her characters well, that the most interesting character had nothing to do with the apes, and other things, but for the most part I don’t agree.  Ape House was a perfectly good follow up to an excellent book. Maybe my lowered expectations are the reason that I liked it, but I did like it nonetheless.

Ape House focuses on three main characters/groups of characters: 1. John Thigpen, a reporter, 2. Isabel Duncan, head scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, and 3. The apes themselves.  Here I agree with the reviewers. The fourth main character, John’s wife Amanda, was by far the most interesting. As a struggling writer living away from John, we don’t see a lot of Amanda, but the parts of the book that contain her were the most developed, possibly because Gruen put a lot of herself into the character.  Regardless, John and Isabel are both very relatable characters, and in their interactions with the apes, and the circumstances surrounding a bombing at the Great Ape Language Lab, we see the human side of both of them. The story follows the characters after the bombing, and in the end reveals who was behind the bombing.  Incidentally, the villain is fairly predictable, and I had figured out who it was far earlier than Gruen intended, but the novel is still entertaining as it gets there. Overall, I am still a fan of Sara Gruen’s writing, and Ape House. It’s no Water for Elephants, but really, what is?

4- I’d read this again but I think I’m glad I didn’t buy it the moment it came out.

Next up: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a beast of a book, the next in what seems to be a string of serious novels placed on hold at the library that all came in at the same time.