Review ~ The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

Title: The Zookeeper's Wife

Author: Diane Ackerman
Copyright: 2008
Type:  Historical Fiction/Biography
Pages: 384
Series: no

Reason for Reading: 

The movie was coming out and I thought I need to read this first. Sadly I never saw the movie nor did I finish the book before the movie went to DVD

Summary:

The New York Times bestseller: a true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

After their zoo was bombed, Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski managed to save over three hundred people from the Nazis by hiding refugees in the empty animal cages. With animal names for these "guests," and human names for the animals, it's no wonder that the zoo's code name became "The House Under a Crazy Star." Best-selling naturalist and acclaimed storyteller Diane Ackerman combines extensive research and an exuberant writing style to re-create this fascinating, true-life story—sharing Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," while examining the disturbing obsessions at the core of Nazism.

Thoughts:

I enjoyed this book I really did. The story over all was very sad and I found that I was crying over the animals more then the people which doesn't speak very highly of me but alas the way that Antonina describes them and how she cared for them made me feel for them even more. I felt so bad about the animals and her son Rhys who every time he got attached to one it was killed. I also couldn't image what it was like for Antonia being pregnant at this whole time and during WW2. It was so stressful for her and this book got it across to the reader. The tension was off the chain in this book. The thing I didn't appreciate was the fact of it skipping around and it was definitely not written by Antonina it was a lot of guessing and filling in. This bothered me since Antonina kept a journal during the whole time so why didn't they take more of it and use it. I have to say though for the most part I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to know what it was like for Polish people during WW2. 

Goodreads: 3 out of 5 stars

Would you recommend this book to others? It wasn't what I was expecting but it was okay.