Review: The Zoo at the Edge of the World

The Zoo at the Edge of the World by Eric Kahn Gale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Young Marlin is a stutterer and the youngest of Roland Rackham's two sons.
Roland is the owner of the famous Zoo at the Edge of the World and has really high expectations of his sons (unfortunately for Marlin). Every day in Marlin's life is a constant struggle to communicate with humans and his interactions rarely end well. With animals however he has no problem at all or so he thinks until his father brings a Jaguar back from the jungle, to be newest and highly anticipated attraction.

I loved a lot of things about this book, including the writing, character and plot development.
However what I loved the most was how the story was not about fixing or finding a magical cure for Marlin's disability. Despite everything, Marlin took on many challenges and even surprised himself with how he handled it all. I was also impressed by how the animals were portrayed. I was able to empathize with them and struggled with whether or not they were friends, or enemies, or both.

I do know for sure that next time I go to the zoo, I will be thinking of this book for a lot of reasons.