After reading Cinder and Scarlet last month, I paused in my reading of the Lunar Chronicles to read The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman. This book has been recommended to me by a few people over the years. I don’t exactly make it a secret that I love World War II books. I got the audiobook out of the library as one of the books advertised for the anniversary of D-Day, and I had to read it before it expired.
The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the true story of a woman in Poland who saved hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust by hiding them in the abandoned animal cages of the zoo. The book follows the woman and her family through the whole of the war, dealing with the invasion and occupation of Poland by the Nazis, the Holocaust, the Polish resistance, and then the arrival of the Russians. Honestly, while I found the story this book told to be incredible, I thought the execution of the book hindered my enjoyment of it.
The subject of this book reminded me a lot of The Assisi Underground, which is about priests in Assisi who hid Jews by disguising them as priests and nuns in the many churches in Assisi. The Zookeeper’s Wife reminded me of the Assisi Underground because of the unlikely and ingenious strategy of hiding people, as well as the leadership of this one woman who took it upon herself to protect all these people and see them on to safety. Most of my World War II knowledge is focused in Italy, France, England, Germany, and America. I don’t know too much about Poland, and I think I’ve only read one other book about World War II in Poland, so I was particularly fascinated by this account.
On the other hand, I found the writing to be scattered and a little tone deaf. The book leapt crazily from descriptions of the cuteness of the critters the zookeeper’s family was saving to the horrors of the war. It was pretty jarring. It also leapt around in time a lot. At one point, I got so confused I thought the main character had been pregnant for two years. There quite a few moments like this where I wasn’t quite sure where I was in space and time in the book, and it felt like the confusion could have been cleared up with clearer writing. I also found the writing to be rather dry, and I was both fascinated and bored at the same time as I read.
Let me be perfectly clear. This was a great story. It was an interesting story, and an important story. It deserved to be told, and deserves to be read. And I’m glad I read it. Unfortunately, I just didn’t enjoy the book that much. I can’t help comparing it to the fabulous nonfiction books I’ve read on World War II in the past, particularly The Assisi Underground, and the World War II books I’ve read since I finished The Zookeeper’s Wife, Code Girls and A Woman of No Importance, which I loved and I’ll talk about here soon.
I have heard good things about the movie for The Zookeeper’s Wife, and maybe when all this bar studying is over I’ll check that out.
Have you read The Zookeeper’s Wife? Seen the movie? What did you think?