Arctic Zoo is a well-written pacey teenage fiction novel. The two main protagonists are well developed and the reader has a real sense of what they’re like as people. Georgia is a young 14/15 year old who gets straight A’s at school. Her life takes unexpected turns when tragedy strikes her family. The chapters alternate between the life of Georgia and the life of Julius, a homosexual teenager in Nigeria to fit in with his family and peers.
The author spends a good deal of time establishing a sense of place, this is particularly strong in the sections relating to Nigeria where the reader can almost feel the chaos, depravity and social injustice described.
This novel is quite dark in places and potentially distressing, as a teenager it would probably have given me nightmares, but I was a rather sensitive soul.
The only downside for me was the ending, which felt a little rushed, but there weren’t too many loose ends and so it was more than satisfactory. I just felt that we could have had the same level of detail from the beginning at the end as well.
The author spends a good deal of time establishing a sense of place, this is particularly strong in the sections relating to Nigeria where the reader can almost feel the chaos, depravity and social injustice described.
This novel is quite dark in places and potentially distressing, as a teenager it would probably have given me nightmares, but I was a rather sensitive soul.
The only downside for me was the ending, which felt a little rushed, but there weren’t too many loose ends and so it was more than satisfactory. I just felt that we could have had the same level of detail from the beginning at the end as well.