Erratic behaviour of animals increases all around the world and Jackson Oz, a young biologist, sees it first-hand as he witnesses a brutal and coordinated attack by lions in Africa. Together with Chloe Tousignant, an ecologist, they try to understand what causes the recent changes and warn world leaders before it’s too late
Zoo is not a good book. I picked it up primarily because I have found the plot to find interesting, but secondary because I wanted to finally read Patterson’s work. I will be hesitant to pick up any of his other novels off the shelf, if I do that at all.
There are numerous plot holes within the story and some scenes are thrown into there for no apparent reason. The science, even for fiction work, is questionable, and the behaviour of all characters is erratic and unrealistic.
Furthermore, I have came across a paragraph at the end of chapter 36 which is taken word by word from a 2004 National Geographic article by Maryann Mott, 8 years before Zoo was first published. This article is not cited anywhere, and the original author is not credited with her work, suggesting plagiarism (my book edition ISBN 9781846058301).
The only reason I have come across this, is the fact that that paragraph was the only one to resonate with me throughout the entire book. After reading it the first time around I wanted to check if the phenomenon of animals sensing 2004 Tsunami before it occurred was a real event and if so, I wanted to do further research on it. I found that fact to be interesting, as simple as that.
The article must have not been hard to find for Patterson and the co-writer seeing as it is the first one that comes up when you google “animals 2004 tsunami”. Sentences are taken one by one and not even their order is changed, now that is not only plain stupid, it’s also extremely lazy. You could blame it on the writers, ghost writers, editors, publishers, what have you, but ultimately if my own name was put on in big arse letters at the front cover, making even the co-writer look small in that sense, I’d double check everything myself.
Perhaps the issue has been remedied already and some sort of citation has been placed in the newer editions of the book. Perhaps even an apology has been issued. If so, it must have been on a down low as no information on that can be easily found. And for me that’s enough of a step up to try and remedy the mistake.
This book doesn’t deserve anything. Being a questionable piece of writing is not illegal, but plagiarism is and I can’t seem to find any information that would disprove that about Zoo.
Thank you for reading this review and until next time, Dream on, Dreamers!
The Wolf Pad 