My only previous experience with the Planet of the Apes series of movies, was the Tim Burton release - which I'm now surprised to realize followed the book fairly closely. I'll have to watch it again to double check. XD

Over all, I enjoyed the book, even though I tend to despise anything written in first person, but here it worked well enough with the tale being told in a letter surrounded by a third person book end.

I particularly enjoyed the relationship play between Ulysses, Zira, Nova and Cornelius. The attraction between Ulysses and Zira being particularly fun as they both noticed, and ignored it at the same time. But I'm a sucker for jealous spouses (Oh, Nova and Cornelius), so it shouldn't be a surprise I loved that aspect of the book.

It was a fun, relatively short, adventure exploring adaption to new situations and reasserting one's own character regardless of others' perceptions. :)

The twist ending however was definitely ruined by the 'Rosebud' scenario, when you go into a book already knowing the punchline, it sort of lessens the effect. As such, the last couple of pages felt flat and the ending sort of rushed.

Either way, it's a book I'd probably read again happily.