Zoology

by Ben Dolnick

Zoology is the story of Henry Elinsky, a college flunk-out who takes a job at the Central Park Zoo and discovers that becoming an adult takes a lot more than just a weekly paycheck.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, New York, Animals, Adult

291 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Ben Dolnick is the author of four novels: Zoology, You Know Who You Are, At the Bottom of Everything, and The Ghost Notebooks. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, and on NPR. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think my high rating has a lot to do with how impressed I am that this is Dolnick's first novel ... there were moments where I felt like he was speaking directly at me. I've never wanted to make friends with a goat so bad.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm tired of plots/characters that/who just allow themselves to be swept along by their surroundings. I'm tired of books that have no interest in anything resembling complexity or surprise.

This book, Zoology, by Ben Dolnick, has a Jonathan Safran Foer stamp of approval on the front cover. I should have been weary then, but instead I fell for the ploy, and decided that the author of Everything is Illumintated must certainly have literary taste, and that this logically meant that book a book with his quote on the cover was a modern masterpiece, right? But it's not at all. Not nearly. It doesn't even threaten to be anything more than a coming-of-age fantasy about a boy in New York working at a zoo. Dolnick throws in the nod to Judaism, as he is in fact Jewish, and when you're Jewish, clearly you have to have an anecdote about going back to temple, remembering the horrors of your Bar Mitzvah, and writing a thesis on why you swore you'd never return, but then have a sense of comfort and nostalgia for your childhood Hebrew school days. The style is repetitive and uninteresting, and there's honestly no discernable plot, which would of course be fine, if the protagonist, Henry, was someone worth caring about. But he's not. Dolnick gives him these sort of interesting labels (saxophonist, zoo keeper), but they don't hide the fact that this kid, this protagonist, is just your average 18-year-old college drop out trying to "find himself" in the big city.

Henry reminds me of some of my friends from Maryland, Montgomery County to be exact, which makes sense because Dolnick is from MoCo. And don't get me wrong, I certainly think my friends are interesting and worth knowing, etc, etc, and more than a few of them could even merit a novelization of their lives. But Henry doesn't. After 275+ pages, I feel like Dolnick has held back, sheltered Henry, and just lived out his own daydreams of zoo life and young love. Events that teeter on horrible happen, but they fall short of real tragedy, and so they fall short of really making me care. Dolnick skims the line of character development, but with a kid as self-obsessed and alone as Henry, almost-pain or almost-loss won't cut it.

It's just upsetting how boring and unimaginative this novel is, and Foer's approval is just salt in the wound. Where are my promising new authors with fresh ideas and risk-taking know-how?

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something I find deeply appealing in tales of naive, Walter Mitty-ish losers, who find a kind of arcadian joy in the world even as it continues to reject them. This is an apparently somewhat autobiographical tale of a college dropout who moves to the big city, falls in unrequited love, and bonds with farmyard animals. He is not very bright, a little overweight, and largely oblivious to the emotions of those around him. But despite not being destined for greatness, he manages to finds satisfaction in his own little piece of the world; which, the book seems to say, is what growing up is all about.

[Danni The Girl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has been sitting on my book shelf for ages and I have only just managed to get round to it. Reading the blurb I thought this was going to be something a bit different to read, so I was excited.
Reading this book, personally, was painful. All the way through I kept starting a paragraph and then I'd realised I started day dreaming about other things, this book just couldn't hold my interest.
Its about a boy called Henry who goes to stay with his brother in New York for the summer and gets a job at the zoo.
Henry falls in love with a girl and in those moments that the author describes how Henry feels about her, is if I'm honest, immense, its described perfectly of how you are falling in love with someone and it can be painful, those parts I enjoyed
Towards the end everything goes wrong for poor Henry and I just feel really miserable, he just ends up worse off than he did to begin with.
I also thought the story at the end about Newman was stupid, don't understand the point of it. Maybe there is a deep meaningful point to this book that I just wasn't picking up on? Maybe?
I wouldn't read this again and I wouldn't recommend it. Very disappointing.

[Alex Parks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book in a three-star sort of way until the last 60 pages or so. Basically, the main character, Henry, is an idiot. He completely tricks himself into thinking that a girl who has a boyfriend may react positively when he tells her how much he's in love with her. It seems like something I would've done in middle school, not something a 19 year old should be doing. Of course, she doesn't react well when he spills his guts, and in order to alleviate his poor little teen heart he decides to go walk around New York City with a goat he freed from the zoo he works at. Is this a good idea? What do you think will happen next? If you answered "The goat will run away" then you're 100% right! How predictable is that. Then, rather than own up to his mistakes to his boss, he tries to cover it up before eventually coming clean, making his entire situation worse. Basically, this book would've been okay if the main character wasn't incredibly immature and stupid.

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel kinda bad only giving this two stars because it wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. The basic premise is about a young boy who goes to NY to stay with his brother the summer after he's graduated and his 'coming of age' so to speak and there is some merit in the story, just not enough to really capture you completely. There is some charm to Henry's story - his failed attempt at a music career, his work at the zoo, his friendship with his workmates, his refusal to believe his parents marriage is falling apart, his first love...

I think what lets the book down is that although it is realistic enough, there is a degree of hopelessness in the whole thing for large parts of the book. The girl he's in love with toys with him and although she is at least (mostly) honest with him from the outset, you can't help but feel frustrated on his behalf as she blows hot and cold while enjoying his advances. His parent's marriage does fall apart, his brother all but packs his bags for him...you almost want someone, anyone to just stop and cut him a break and then you remember that you are reading this from the perspective of a young guy who is a biased narrator so you're unsure how much of what we see is an emotional response from him.

Basically the whole book feels like being a teenager again where everything feels much bigger/more important than it is. This book is a bit like that - there is something there, something that could be great but something that hasn't quite found its way yet. I think I'd like to see Henry again with 10 years experience under his belt - he's a nice guy and a likeable protagonist and the scene at the end where he takes control - leaves NY, gets into college and finds something he loves was great to see. You want to see how it will shake out for him because this snap-shot, this summer where he was betwixt and between anything and everything wasn't a real representation of what he was going to be.

This is a quick read and it's good enough, I just think it could have been even better. I like that there wasn't a clichéd HEA and there were some real bright spots interwoven with everything else so it's worth a read if you have a few hours to kill.

[Tarynwanderer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can be bored by books, or bewildered by the author's choices, or unable to suspend my disbelief enough to buy into a story, but it's rare that I feel the visceral level of dislike that I felt while reading Ben Dolnick's debut novel Zoology.



Henry Elinsky fails his first year of college. To escape the boredom of living at home with his parents for the summer, Henry accepts his older brother's offer of a place to live in New York City and a job working at the Central Park Zoo. He ends up befriending another summer transplant, Margaret, and bonds with her as various tragedies befall them both.

Zoology is a slim novel, topping out at 300 pages, but it felt longer for me. A huge stumbling block was our "hero" himself, Henry, who is just straight-up unlikeable and not in an interesting way--in an 18-year old man-child way. I kept getting the sense that Dolnick was trying to reach for Holden Caufield-esque protagonist in Henry. But Holden, despite how you may feel about him, felt things and felt them strongly--not just about himself, but about the injustices and hypocrisies he saw in the world around him.

Henry is, by contrast, a boring sadsack. He has no sense of relativism, no curiosity, no unselfishness, no compassion. He gets angry when a girl he likes doesn't want to date him and hopes that by staying friends with her, he'll win her away from her boyfriend. (Um, respect her choice, dude; she said no.) Perhaps I've been spoiled, but the 18-year old boys I grew up with--like my brother and my boyfriend--were not like Henry at all. Thankfully.

Read the rest of this review over at Bookwanderer!

[Kara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zoology started off slow, so it took me awhile to get into it. I was starting to enjoy it about half way through, except that's when everything collapsed. Throughout the entire novel the protagonist has a "woe is me" attitude. He fails out of college, he hates his job, and he despises living at home with his parents. When he accepts his brother's invitation to live in NYC,he believes that life will be better. He falls head over heels in love with a girl, who doesn't return the feelings. He dislikes his boss at the zoo. He learns his parents are having marital problems, his brother is having disagreements with his girlfriend, and his world falls apart around him. His father has a heart attack, his great uncle is in poor health, his parents split, he gets fired from his job, he discovers that the girl he loves has a boyfriend back home, and finally the protagonist moves back home when his brother kicks him out of the apartment. The novel ends when the main character is on vacation with his parents and he rescues a cat with a tumor. His parents call the police, and take the sick cat away. And presumably, he will start college again at a different college on the other side of the country. This book had the potential to be something great, but it fell short. It appears the author just kind of threw misfortunes at the main character to see if any of it would stick. With little to no character growth, it was hard to identify with any of the characters, even though this book was labeled as a "coming of age" story that most people should have been able to identify with. I was so upset between Newman going MIA and the way that this novel ended that I wouldn't recommend any one reading this.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this sweet coming of age adult novel. And I'm sickened that the author is SEVEN years younger than me and writing like someone who has real promise. Ugh.[return][return]Anyway, Henry Elinsky is a college dropout (actually the college told him to take a break) and he's bored to tears living with his parents again. His older brother David, a dermatologist, and his girlfriend offer to share their apartment in NYC. On the condition that Henry gets a job. At the Zoo. Henry, who doesn't know what the word ambition is, interviews and lands the job in the children's zoo. He's cleaning poop, cutting vegetables, and not doing much else with the little animals. But he attaches himself to Newman, the goat that listens carefully to everything Henry says. And Henry attaches himself to Margaret, a girl visiting NYC from Montana. The novel tells the story of Henry during that one summer in NYC--his job, his girl, his parents' failing marriage, and his goat. Newman is by far the strongest character in the novel, followed closely by Ramon and Sameer.[return][return]I'm not sure what adjectives to use with this novel. There isn't a wow factor, but there is a quiet, settled part of my gut that says, "yesssss." Perhaps I should think on it some more. I'll let you know. Right now I'm thinking about old Seinfeld episodes....

[Linda C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry Elinsky has flunked out of college by Thanksgiving of his freshman year. His ever optimistic Father tells him to take his time finding his place and in the meantime to assist him in teaching music at Henry's Alma mater. His father has encouraged Henry to keep up with his saxophone and consider that as a possible future. After 6 months of little ambition and no decision-making Henry is invited to come to NYC and stay with his brother, David and David's girlfriend, Lucy. David knows of a job opening at the Central Park Zoo and gets Henry an interview. Henry makes the move and gets the job in the Children's Zoo. The story covers the summer in NYC; the job and his fellow workers and the animals in their care, particularly Newman, a Nubian long eared goat. It also entails his relationship with a girl visiting her relatives in the same apartment building. I can't say that I really liked Henry during much of this story. I couldn't connect with much of his thinking. I did like his interactions with the doorman, elevator operator and security staff at the apartment building and his interactions with the animals at the Zoo. His family is a misfit of characters that can't communicate; obviously helping to create Henry's inability to find himself. Not until Henry has to rely on his own abilities to solve a problem is he able to move forward.

[Mikey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book only because the guy that wrote it is only a year older than I am. I had pretty low expectations, and there really was nothing about it that I would call remarkable. Obviously Dolnick has had the luxury of living in New York City. He has also had the luxury of going to Columbia. Those two things in and of themselves do not qualify him as a writer, but there is probably no use in telling that to him.

I found most of the characters flat and uninteresting. I thought the plot was tragically underdeveloped. The writing wasn't bad, but some of the similes were way to obvious and very out of place at times. The plot really went nowhere. I really wasn't interested in the narrator all that much. I didn't really feel all that bad for him or his situation.

I wouldn't say it was a bad book. I wasn't blow away by any stretch of the imagination, but somebody thought that this thing was good enough to publish. At least that's worth something.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in the remainders bin at the bookstore and thought it sounded interesting. I'm so glad that I brought it home because it was a delightful book. The author is local (from Chevy Chase) and some parts of the book are set in Montgomery County and Northern Virginia. Most of the book is set in NYC and follows a kid through one summer as he tries to figure out how to make that tricky transition between adolescence and adulthood. The main character has an appealing narrative voice and Dolnick flushes out his world with carefully drawn supporting characters. If I were still teaching high school English, I would consider putting this on the syllabus. It's a modern take on the age old problem of growing up.

[nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another teen angst, coming-of-age tale filled with great lines like "You don't really know how lonely you are, I don't think, until you get some relief from it." The book contains some events and characters that don't seem important to the plot, yet you know they must have stemmed from the author's real life, so in a strange way, then they really are integral to the storyline.

[Sarah Caldwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is possibly the most boring book I’ve ever read. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to dislike the main character, Henry, but I certainly did.

He was amazingly selfish and immature. This book was like looking back at the time in your life when you know the least about yourself. I cringed through this book, hoping I wasn’t this insufferable in my early twenties. I probably was.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dude totally says things that I've wanted to say, feelings I've wanted to express. That sounds lame, right?

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you read fiction to remove yourself from your life, to travel to remote locations and go on fantastic adventures. And sometimes, you read fiction because it seems so similar to your life, because you want a confirmation that someone else is going through something similar to you, that people feel similar things that you feel.

I picked up Zoology for the latter reason.

Henry Elinsk, the book's main character, is taking a break from college and spending the summer in New York City with his brother. He's trying to sort out his priorities in life, his goals, and possibly pursue a love life. I don't really agree with how he acted towards Margaret, but I understand him getting caught up in something. And the way the book is written, it seems less like an endorsement of his actions than a realistic depiction of what young life is like.

I know some people have said that Henry seems kind of aimless, that he just lets things happen to him. But to me that's kind of what being a young adult, especially one without the full responsibility of adulthood, is like. You have responsibility, but not as much as you would have if you lived on your own. It's a weird in between life, and sometimes it's hard to find purpose. I think Dolnick does a great job of illustrating this in between life, and that he captures youthful indecision and disillusionment perfectly in the busy summer days of New York City.

[Monica Caldicott]

Life after high school is not the easiest thing to manage, as 18-year-old Henry Elinsky finds out. During his one semester of college, the only notice Henry gets is a letter from the dean encouraging him to "take a break" before returning to campus.

Helping in his dad's elementary school music classes is a bore. His ho-hum relationship with Wendy started merely because he was too lazy to stop her. His mother is always looking at him and sighing, with disappointment dripping from her face.

So when Henry's older brother and his artist girlfriend offer for him to live with them in New York City for a while, Henry jumps at the chance. Not because he likes animals so much, but more because it pays, Henry takes a job at the Central Park Zoo.

Read p. 41 "all right, I'm going to tell you about the job."

When Henry meets the animals, it is the goat Newman who steals his heart. And later, swimming at the apartment building's pool, he meets Margaret, who steals his heart for a second time.

[Krystal Mendez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing style, though found it odd that just during the blackout towards the end of the book, we start to get the parenthesis of information on things that were also happening around Henry when his mind wasn't completely in one place. I was also hoping for more closure at the end. I would've liked to know if Newman was ever found, if he actually sent a letter back to Margaret, and if his brother ever said anything to him given Henry left his apartment so abruptly. It just ends with Henry finding a dog with a tumor and finding out his parents are getting a divorce, but no answers.
I also liked learning more about the growing friendship/ relationship between him and Margaret, although it felt a bit toxic as she seemed to be leading him on while he was growing overly attached to her to the point it was creepy, especially after he first saw the photo of her boyfriend.

[Keith Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the continuing project "Clean Out The Library", I read this short little coming-of-age novel I picked up as an ARC back in 2007 in a few days. Young guy from D.C. flunks out of his first year of college and his almost-doctor brother asks him to stay the summer in his NYC apartment with him and girlfriend for a change of pace and to clear his head, and maybe explore playing that jazz sax in the clubs and see where that goes. He gets a job at the zoo and meets a young woman in the apartment building, and things seem to be looking up...

An enjoyable, if inessential, read.

[Kristy McRae · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book left me a bit nonplussed... I really didn't find myself getting attached to any of the characters. I get the whole "coming of age" idea, which is how this book was described, but I found the main character very cringe-worthy and unsympathetic. Maybe if I'd read it at a different point in my life, I'd feel differently, but I just felt "meh" throughout the whole story.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never write negative reviews but this book's main character was so completely insufferable that I can't help but caution others to go ahead and skip this one and save your time for something much more valuable. It was one indulgent and obnoxious choice after another and a prime example of the "good guy" who thinks he is entitled to a woman because he likes her. Barf.

[Vilhelmiina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not memorable, but not as bad as other reviews led me to believe. I'd think of this as Catcher In The Rye but more modern, less whiny, and more relatable. Some really great similes that were strange but made complete sense.

[Timothy S. Henson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some really good parts that are followed by the reader questioning what the author is writing. But I do have to say in the author's defense that this novel is his debut. Overall, it is a good book.

[Mark Boyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

The central character is a complete drip, so it’s little surprise that almost nothing of interest happens to him. The book is reasonably well written, but needs some form of jeopardy at least. Bland and harmless rather than distasteful, hence two rather than one star.

[Aiden · Rating 1 out of 5]

this one's a miss for me. it's written from the first-person perspective, and so far, all of the characters are described in the most off-putting terms, especially the women. okay, I also find the main character and his attitudes off-putting and there's no way I can keep reading

[Devon Forest · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really hoping for a lot more about the Central Park Zoo aspect of the story.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this in a charity shop years ago, decided not to buy it, and then regretted it so tracked down a copy. Coming of age tale set in NYC, I enjoyed reading it, even though not very much happens.

[Danielle Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 - enjoyed the premise of the book and felt emotionally connected with each of the characters.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good exploration of characters and adolescent feelings. Not much actually happens but it's a nice read.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

A plodding story and a main unlikable character in a coming of age story that you can't wait to come to an end.