I listened to this book in Audible because it wasn’t available through Libby. (I know, I’m ashamed).
The narrator was TERRIBLE!!! Worse voice imaginable. The writing of this book was redundant too, a lot of repeated words to describe things that had me rolling my eyes at parts. The story was okay, but it could have been so much better. It had so much potential, especially to me as a Giraffe lover! Worst book I’ve read all year. Not the worst book of all time though.
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT listen to the audio recording of this book if you decide to read it.
A story about a trip across 1938 America with a pair of giraffes and an allegory about time itself
5 stars
An excellent book made even more excellent as it was inspired by actual event. The author took a time and event where the San Diego Zoo was obtaining their first pair of Giraffes in 1938 and being transported across the US and filled in a little bit of history, that otherwise is now unknown, with characters of her own making. Fitting their story in a small pocket of history with some of the most monuments events in US and World history filling in as the backdrop.
It's a story about change and loss and about a word constantly moving on. Even in the first chapter when we first meet the main character and primary narrator, Woodrow Wilson Nickel, he's already passed and it's a VA liaison going through his belonging who finds and reads his narrative. From there and for the most of the rest of the book it's about …
An excellent book made even more excellent as it was inspired by actual event. The author took a time and event where the San Diego Zoo was obtaining their first pair of Giraffes in 1938 and being transported across the US and filled in a little bit of history, that otherwise is now unknown, with characters of her own making. Fitting their story in a small pocket of history with some of the most monuments events in US and World history filling in as the backdrop.
It's a story about change and loss and about a word constantly moving on. Even in the first chapter when we first meet the main character and primary narrator, Woodrow Wilson Nickel, he's already passed and it's a VA liaison going through his belonging who finds and reads his narrative. From there and for the most of the rest of the book it's about his adventures and his life, with the story coming back to the recent present occasionally with him in a nursing home writing the memoir and interacting with the staff.
The only downside I would say is that the ending feels a little less than satisfying at points, but that primarily because the author is constrained by actual history. Instead of embellishing or having an alternate history, this story fits neatly into our own universe in a part of history that would otherwise be a vacuum. But as the story draws to a close we get an ending that isn't typical for most novels but is one that probably far more realistic.
