Book Four (A)

Book Four was meant to be our February book club book: The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman.  I say "meant to be," because I didn't read it.  For nearly three weeks it sat on my shelf, waiting to be read.  I thought about it several times but was engrossed in what actually became Book Four.  Finally, it was the Sunday before book club.  I knew I needed to read it, so I pulled it off the shelf and settled in.

Wow.  I must have read the first four pages a dozen times, and I still couldn't tell you what they say.  It's so disappointing to me when I can't even get that far in a book, because I know that somewhere, someone (Diane Ackerman, as it seems) worked hard researching and writing the manuscript.  But I'm sorry, Diane, you have to do better than that.  You need to somehow wrap me into it.  Rumor has it that it's good if you get a ways into it, but who has time for that?  If you can't catch me at the beginning, chances are good that someone else will.

All that said, I think the subject matter and the premise of the biography really are great.  A Polish, Christian zookeeper and his wife house Jews during the Holocaust.  And the kicker is that they hide them in cages in their zoo.  I imagine that it's far more humane than it sounds (and than the Holocaust, when it comes down to it), but my point is that I don't know.  I have no clue.  Part of me wishes I did.  Part of me wanted to renew it and give it a go.  But most of me wanted to return it to the library and get back to Uncle Stevie. 

Maybe someday I'll pick The Zookeeper's Wife up again--and just start where it gets good.  But until then, I'll just mark it in Goodreads as "Couldn't Finish" and move on to the March Book Club Book.  It looks a bit more engaging--just from the cover.