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caralee22's review
2.0
I went to see David Sedaris and he recommended this book to the audience. With the exception of the essay on the lost dog and the one on Keiko the whale, I didn't enjoy it much Very disappointing because I loved The Library Book. Can't win them all.
rebekahjenkins's review
4.0
It’s not horrible, I did enjoy it more than I thought I would, but it wasn’t a great read. 3.75 stars, rounding up. Some of the first essays are really great, I enjoyed the one on Free Willy/Keiko the best, but others seemed to be placeholders. And then the final chapter was actually really interesting but it was structured completely different and it threw off the unity of the book. Still better than How to Be a Good Creature which is more what I expected.
skaterhick25's review
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Overall good book. Learned about different types of animals and their lives. I enjoyed the author bringing her own journey with animals into the narrative too.
mfh1979's review
3.0
This had its laugh out loud moments... but mostly was just observations. Learned a lot, in the chapter dedicated to it, about animal actors rights.
dreamgalaxies's review
3.0
Some of these essays were interesting but some of them weren’t. Not a lot of depth here, which I was somewhat expecting after enjoying Orlean’s other books. If you go in expecting something more mundane you’ll be better off. These essays don’t really engage with the level of weirdness that permeates our relationships with animals and a lot of the subjects were only glancingly approached (exotic animal parks, freeing Keiko the whale—which as far as I know didn’t actually end well). It seems like Orlean just smashed together some essays she wrote for various publication without any updates.