John Irving is one of those writers that people are always like "OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO READ HIM!!!" which is strange, considering I have tried to read The World According to Garp about 3 different times and could never get into it. Thankfully though, I was able to get through Widow in about a week (I'm a fast reader when I want to be...thanks to the WGA strike!) A hefty 500+ pages, this is a story about a very dysfunctional and sexually charged family of writers who live on the East End of Long Island. Overall, this was a pretty good read, although for some reason, Irving had this weird compulsion to keep bringing up how spectacular Ruth Cole's breasts were. At any rate, the story had a nice pace to it, some international travel, gratuitous sex scenes, and a happy ending. Sometimes, you can't go wrong with that.
In Gruen's debut novel Water for Elephants , readers fell in love with the titular elephant Rosie. In her second novel Ape House , a similar fondness occurs with the aforementioned apes. The cast of bonobos live happily in their Language Lab under the watchful eye of scientist Isabel Duncan. They are able to use sign language to communicate and enjoy playing around with visitors and the other scientists. Everything is going great until the lab gets bombed and the apes mysteriously disappear. Once the dust settles, Duncan is horrified to find out that the bonobos have been sold to a television producer who has casted them in their own 24 hour reality tv show. Joining forces with a newspaper reporter, an exotic dancer, animal activists and other research assistants, Duncan takes on the fight of her life to rescue her bonobos and give them the proper kind of life they deserve.
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