Ape House

Ape House is the latest offering from Sara Gruen. If you're unfamiliar with her name, you might be familiar with the title, Water for Elephants, which she also wrote, was wildly popular, and is being made into a movie. Ape House, obviously, also deals with animals. It is the story of bonobo apes in a facility on a university campus in Kansas. Isabel Duncan is the scientist charged with teaching her family of bonobos to communicate through sign language and getting them to understand spoken language. John Thigpen, a journalist, is sent to do a story on the apes' amazing accomplishments.

After John goes home, a bomb goes off in the ape facility. The apes are kidnapped (ape-napped?) and Isabel is left clinging to life. John returns to continue following the story, helping to figure out who is behind these horrible events and who is forcing the apes to take part in a reality TV show, Ape House.

I enjoyed this one. It was an interesting story and Gruen did a great job with the ape parts of it and humanizing their characteristics. It was brief, just about 300 pages, and a very fast read. But, it kept my attention. I did remember liking Water for Elephants better but this one is worth reading too.

Here's the good news. This was, in my rough calculations, my 48th read. YEA! But, I still have close to 900 pages left in my current book and then one more to read after that to hit 50 in just about 2 1/2 weeks. I hope I didn't miscount.