The One and Only Ivan

Honestly, this book only got really exciting to me when I learned (in the epilogue) that not only is Ivan (loosely) based on a real live gorilla, but that I MET him. He lived in Zoo Atlanta! And I went there! And spent lots of time with the gorillas! And it was right before he died!

Yes, the book was creative in its first-gorilla narrative. Yes, it was a fresh perspective and a well-written story. But I found myself not terribly riveted by Ivan's slow life and a little impatient with the lack of rising action until the last few chapters. And I think it's a shame that the author veers from the story of the real live Ivan to create a really unbelievable situation about Ivan painting a giant mural made up of numerous individual paintings that the janitor's daughter just happens to put in just the right order to discover the picture he has drawn and she is just convincing enough to get her father to glue the entire assembled mural made up of individual sheets of paper onto a freeway billboard. That's when you lost me, Katherine.

Still, I wept when Stella dies and when Ivan sees Ruby happy with other elephants. Oh, and when he sees Julia at the zoo. That was sweet.