This was a quick read - 2 hours - but I did spend most of it wondering if I should carry on. It was ridiculous. I liked the synopsis and the general idea - the animal apocalypse, basically, with humans suddenly becoming the bottom of the for chain - and following the misadventures of a group of people who happened to be visiting a zoo the day it happened. The characters were incomplete cliches - violent homophobic tattooed Scotsman, uppity smug rich businessman, helpless yet beautiful tortured young lady, etc. There was a cute kid who said cloying cute things that made everyone laugh. The dialogue felt unrealistic and the writing seemed stilted to me.
All that said, the idea and the rough plot, while ridiculous and not entirely fleshed out, was quite fun, like a blockbuster film. I am a sucker for post apocalyptic of all sorts and haven't read one quite like this before, and in the over saturated genre, that in itself is pretty impressive. Because of that I've upped from 2 to 3 stars. Hey, at least it isn't more zombies... ( )

This was a quick read - 2 hours - but I did spend most of it wondering if I should carry on. It was ridiculous. I liked the synopsis and the general idea - the animal apocalypse, basically, with humans suddenly becoming the bottom of the for chain - and following the misadventures of a group of people who happened to be visiting a zoo the day it happened. The characters were incomplete cliches - violent homophobic tattooed Scotsman, uppity smug rich businessman, helpless yet beautiful tortured young lady, etc. There was a cute kid who said cloying cute things that made everyone laugh. The dialogue felt unrealistic and the writing seemed stilted to me.
All that said, the idea and the rough plot, while ridiculous and not entirely fleshed out, was quite fun, like a blockbuster film. I am a sucker for post apocalyptic of all sorts and haven't read one quite like this before, and in the over saturated genre, that in itself is pretty impressive. Because of that I've upped from 2 to 3 stars. Hey, at least it isn't more zombies... ( )

This was a great read--lots of action, interesting storyline & characters. Everything after the 'end' had me a bit confused, though, until I figured out the connections. There were some connections that left me wondering, like Caroline...the only tie-in I could see was Danny's backpack--a brief mention. I would rather have known more about what happened to Joe & Danny than having another character introduced at that late juncture. I was happy to see that we did find out what happened to Jane.
I also found it odd that Randall's name would be misspelled in 'Clocking Off,' Jeff's part of the story. Being that it was the first after the epilogue, it was confusing until I was able to put 2 & w together with the hints of meetings and asthma.
I hate to be 'that person' when it comes to grammatical errors, but it does disrupt the flow of the story when I'm reading & have to re-read the same section a couple of times to get the correct word/meaning.
Still, I did love the story! I would be interested in a sequel to this one, if for nothing more than absolute closure on Joe & Danny...maybe find out if there was an absolute win on the part of the animals or whether there were survivors that made it to safety & were able to rebuild. ( )

This is the second book that I have read by Mr. Wright. The other was Sam, which I enjoyed. This one I found the characters too stereotypical and it hurt my enjoyment of the story.

I also found the plot a bit too far fetched, especially the domestic pet angle.

It may just be me. ( )

Animal Kingdom is sort of like James Patterson's Zoo. Only this book concentrates a bit more on the human aspect of the situation..
Joe takes his son to the zoo for the day. While watching a snake exhibition, something goes wrong. The snake kills it's handler right in front of them. Joe tries to help, then realizes something is going on within the entire zoo.
They get safely inside a building with a few other survivors. From the windows everyone can see all sorts of animals attacking humans. The animals have gotten smart, learned to organized, and are not happy with their human "captors".
In this story, the small group of people are the focus. Yes, there are scene of animals attacking and trying to get to the humans. But the story is about the people themselves, and the inner turmoil within the group.
What kind of person do you think you would be in this situation? Would you protect only yourself, or be a hero and save others at your own risk? Would you naturally become a leader and have people willingly follow you? Or would you use bullying and physical force to lead and keep people in fear? Would you just be paralyzed with your fear?
I enjoyed this book. Although it was suspenseful, I didn't find it scary enough. ( )