Jenn's Reviews > Zoo

So I picked up this book because the premise seemed really interesting and I have heard great things about James Patterson. I have never read any of his books so I thought I would give this one a try. On the cover flap there is a quote from the New York Times: "Once in a lifetime, a writer puts it all together. This is James Patterson's Best Book Ever." Well if this is the best book ever then the world really has gone downhill and I weep for humanity. This was the worst book I have ever read and I simply kept reading it because I was curious how they would wrap up the ending, which I was severely disappointed with. Beware there are spoilers in the rest of this review.

Ok so the basic plot is that Oz is a scientist (if you can even call him that because he drops out of school, because that is what every scientist does when they come across startling evidence...drop out of school and don't complete your degree, everyone will listen to you then)and he realizes that animals around the world are acting really weird and are attacking people. So he heads off to Botswana to get proof of his crazy theory, while leaving his pet monkey (yes the man who thinks animals are killing humans has a pet monkey) at home for his girlfriend to take care of. In Botswana he is attacked by lions and then conveniently finds a girl and rescues her. What should have been a totally cool scene where they fought for their lives to get back to civilization is completely skipped. Hey I saved the girl, then poof now we are back at the camp. Every time there is some sort of heightened situation it either gets resolved ridiculously quickly, or they simply jump past it. In Botswana they are warned to leave quickly because of what they have filmed, I thought they might have to avoid rabid animals or people trying to stop them, but no the next thing we know they are back in New York City. Where conveniently the old girlfriend has been killed by his pet monkey, something he freaks out about for like five minutes, then simply shrugs off.

The worst thing is that Patterson literally jumps ahead like five years in the middle of the book, randomly for no particular reason. The world has gotten even worse and they have not managed to come up with any solutions. Chloe (the girl Oz rescued in Africa) could have been a very cool character, a scientist (with an actual degree) she was described as tough and smart. But all she does in the book is sit at home with her child and support Oz and wait for him to come defend her.

I finished this book and thought, why, why did I read this. I hope the rest of James Patterson's books are better than this one, because this was truly terrible.