We Bought a Zoo – Benjamin Mee

★★★ ½

You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

Benjamin Mee and his family…bought a zoo.

Theyliterally up and bought a zoo.

And that zoo? Whew. It needed a LOT of work.

To put it mildly, it was barely holding on – financially and to its animals.

But, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And there was no way the Mee family was giving up!

So, I’m seeing a surprisingly large amount of lower ratings for this book, and I kind of get why.

If you saw the movie first, you would expect a heartwarming story all about love and loss, with a strong central story pulling it all together.

However…this book is not the movie. The author has previously written DIY guides and this book somewhat reads like one of those.

It’s certainly interesting to read about all the steps and hoops they jumped through in order to get a zoo back on its feet but it does feel…hmm…a bit dry.

There’s a bit too much emphasis on the process and not enough on the emotion and character development.

To be honest, I still enjoyed it but this is one of the those books where the movies made changes that I feel improved the overall experience of it.

Interested in this one from Benjamin Mee? Buy it here:  Amazon