Customer Reviews

Lucy

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

With an intriguing premise and an action-packed beginning, Laurence Gonzales's "Lucy" got my adrenaline pumping and my hopes set high. In a high-concept "what-if" tease, "Lucy" introduces a young girl raised in the wild by a scientist studying bonobo apes. After calamity strikes her home in the Congo, another primatologist brings Lucy (in case the title wasn't a give-away) home and the two forge a tentative mother/daughter bond. All is not as it seems, however, when it is discovered that Lucy was born of the union between man and bonobo--and is, in fact, a scientific marvel (or atrocity, depending on your viewpoint).

There are many different directions that Gonzales might have taken "Lucy." To name a few: A fish out of water tale as Lucy adjusts to "civilized" society, a sociological examination of how people might react to a new and engineered species, an ethical and/or religious discussion about science being pushed too far, or a techno-thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton. Indeed, all of these aspects are present in "Lucy"--but, for all its good intentions, the novel never really gels these different components effectively. While I did find the chapters dealing with Lucy's adjustment into a new family pleasant--it is by far the most successful element of the book. So, in a minor and surprisingly human way, much of the story does work. However, once we look at the broader picture with menacing governmental agencies and maniacal religious zealots--the tale goes seriously awry.

There is a real lack of subtlety in the remainder of "Lucy." Heroes and villains are drawn in big strokes with little moral ambiguity. No one really wrestles with the concept of inter-species breeding and its repercussions, the good guys just love Lucy and the bad guys just see her as a monkey (maybe I don't share Gonzales's world view that barbarity would be the only available option in this situation). So what begins rather sweetly turns into a pedantic and preachy thriller that's actually pretty short on thrills. Look, "Lucy" is a fast and easy read that can be fun on a very superficial level--I just view it mostly as a missed opportunity to capitalize on a terrifically complex premise.

Short story recap. Scientist in the Congo creates a human-bonobo hybrid called Lucy, he becomes the girl;s father. After the father dies another scientist finds her in the jungle and takes her home, thinking she's a normal human teenager. Lots of complications prevail.

It was a great story, but at points it just felt rushed, so much that I dropped the timeline and was surprised at how little time had actually elapsed in the story. Other times it was paced so slowly that it seemed like we were spending too long in the scene, examining too many details.

Most of the main characters, especially Lucy, are well developed and you begin to feel like you know them and root for them. There are a few though that generally remain in the background, and those tend to be less developed and their actions will surprise you in the wrong way.

Overall it was an intriguing read, with good scientific background. Reminds me of Michael Crichton because some parts get lost in the science.

A book of this type - featuring a girl who is a blend of human and Bonobo genes - should have great science, interesting characters, and deep discussion of ethical issues. This book fails on all counts. The science is sketchy - just a vague discussion of genetic engineering used to create the hybrid Lucy, with no explanation of how this research could be carried out in a hut in the Congolese jungle, with only intermittent electricity from an unreliable generator. The characters (with one exception, who dies in the very beginning of the book), are either all good or all bad, which makes them unbelievable and uninteresting. The discussion of ethics centers on whether Lucy should be considered human or not, assuming that if she is human, she should be treated well. Little or no consideration is given to the issue of whether animals (with no human genes) should be treated badly. All in all, despite the interesting theme, this is a disappointing book.

I was greatly looking forward to reading this book because of the subject matter and the blurb that compared it to Michael Crichton novels. The blurb may have been overstating things a bit, but I found it to be an enjoyable read. It's fast paced and the plots and sub-plots are of the tried and true, stranger in a strange land variety.

Mr. Gonzales has captured the viewpoint and the lingo of American teen girls beautifully, and I think the book would definitely appeal to that audience. The main character, Lucy, is well-crafted and believable when she is interacting with other teens. Some of the adult characters needed more development, though.

The book could have also benefited from a good editor encouraging fleshing out of certain chapters. At times, it is disjointed enough to be frustrating, but the author has made the characters engaging enough to keep you from giving up. I would have enjoyed more scientific foundation building, since the premise of this novel is based upon this, and I think this shortcoming keeps it from being a seriously good book. Still, it's good enough to be an interesting, summer vacation read.

This book is absolutely terrible. I could not recommend it less, unless you're looking for a good laugh.

I don't even know where to begin. First of all, Laurence Gonzales has no concept of subtlety. Rather than gradually showing the reader that Jenny is lonely and never achieved the family she originally wanted, he simply writes, "Jenny had always wanted children." Wow! Writing is so easy! On a similar note, there are never any gray areas as far as characters are concerned. Everyone is either a Good Guy or a Bad Guy, with no room between the two. Every time Lucy and Jenny met a new character, I was initially suspicious of their motives, especially if they were being much too helpful (such as offering up their private jets for Lucy's convenience), until I realized what stupid book I was reading and that everyone is exactly the way they appear on the surface.

Oh, and let's not forget about "The Stream," an unspoken form of communication that all animals share, or something? I don't know, it's basically like something from a Disney movie. Take, for instance, the following excerpt: "The crickets collect their memories and sing about them. They talk so much because they have so much to say. Some birds do that, too, and Lucy liked to sit out in the morning and listen to them reminisce about THE DAYS OF THE DINOSAURS." (Emphasis mine. Terrible writing Gonzales's.)

Probably the most obnoxious portions of the novel occur when Lucy is attempting to assimilate with her classmates. This is where Gonzales's inability to relate to his characters really shines through. How old is Laurence Gonzales? 150 years old? I hate to sound like a snobby member of the Z Generation or whatever we're calling ourselves these days, so the following are some ACTUAL CONVERSATIONS from this book that modern teenagers are supposed to ACTUALLY HAVE:

" 'Hey, guys,' Amanda announced. 'Lucy doesn't have a phone. Is that cool, or what?'
'Word,' said the boy named Matt.
'Sweet,' said a blond girl named Melissa. 'I wish I could get rid of mine. But how do you, like, live?'
Lucy felt her face flush hot.
'I don't even remember not having one,' Melissa said.
'That's because your brain has been fried from doing too many bong hits,' Matt said. Everyone giggled."

---------

" 'How'd you get so strong?'
'Growing up in the jungle. You know. All we did was climb trees.'
'Tight.' Amanda rummaged in her backpack. She came up with a plastic bag. 'Here, I brought you some grapes.'
'Thanks. How did you know I like grapes?'
'Everybody likes grapes.' "

---------
" 'The Stream? What's that?'
Lucy thought for a moment. 'Well. It's kind of like YouTube, I suppose.' "


NOPE. WRONG. Teenagers these days! So into their "bong hits" and their YouTubes and their grapes! (Seriously? "Everybody likes grapes?!?!?!")

I could go on, but you get the picture. Okay, maybe let's do one more:

" 'Don't let me harsh your mellow,' Lucy said.
'Way to pick up on the lingo, Lucy!" Amanda said. "

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. On second thought, I wish I could write something this hilarious.

Honestly, don't waste your money like I did. The book leaves you broken and spent on the side of the road, hating yourself for all the bad decisions in your life that led you to this point.

Don't let this novel harsh your mellow.

As usual, the plot of this novel has been well covered in other reviews. Therefore, I won't belabor that aspect of it. My opinion of the book is that it is an enjoyable read, entertaining and somewhat suspenseful, but an anthropological revelation it is not. It is the story of a gorgeous (naturally) young half-human, half-bonobo teenage girl who is ripped from her sequestered Congo life and plunked down in modern America. To say that this author's rendition of such an event even approaches what the reality of such a thing might be is ridiculous. But I don't think that's the point of this book at all. As the author himself says, if the book keeps readers up late at night, then it has accomplished its purpose. And I think it will do that for many readers, maybe especially young adults (or whomever publishing houses classify as that audience).

The storyline is interesting, although it reaches the implausible and beyond in many places. Hence, my advice of the title of this review: suspend disbelief and enjoy. I liked Lucy, and I cared about what happened to her. She is far too human, in my opinion, to even begin to represent an equal amalgam of human and ape (uh... she looks like not only a human but a spectacularly beautiful human, which seems to be a prerequisite for most female leading ladies these days), and her behavior is really more like that of a naive young girl than someone (even a completely human someone) who has been raised in the company of only her father and other apes in a jungle. But quibbling about the reality of this story is ridiculous, so I shall stop.

Read this book for pure entertainment and an interesting premise. I liked it, and I would read it again (not for a second reading, but for a first). For those of you who might be interested in nonfiction about bonobos, there is a new book out, reviewed in The Week magazine, called Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo, by Vanessa Woods. I haven't read it yet, but the review was favorable. And currently 14 Amazon reviewers give it a 5-star rating, with no reviews less than 5-star.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to review 'Lucy.' It was both fascinating and lousy, which can be a potent combination; I read it in less than one day, even bringing it in to class with me so I could sneak-read it. And yet it was so strangely written that as I devoured it, I recognized that it was really, really bad. Hm.

The simple core of the story is about a human-ape hybrid. Why somebody hasn't thought to do this before is beyond me, because the character of Lucy makes perfect sense as a beautiful, scary creature just begging to be played by some starlet in a big-budget feature film. For the most part, the plot of the book makes sense: scientist finds wild child, brings her to civilization, other people find out, bad shenanigans ensue. It makes sense as a typical potboiler, ramping up the action when necessary, pulling back into more thoughtful territory also when necessary.

But there is so much in here which is so badly done that the cool, scientific aspects of the story got lost for me. Characters are so weirdly developed and described that the writing starts to feel like something you'd read in internet fan fiction. Dialogue is both charming and sounds like it came out of a can. Bizarre pop-culture references to 'Twilight' and Twitter jostle with interesting scientific points about great ape behavior. Weirdly awkward moments abound that have nothing to do with this book being an ARC - there are editing mistakes, sure, but also shifts in storytelling that are just plain badly done. At times it feels like a generic teen book, at times like a book you'd pick up to read on an airplane, and at times like a John Hersey-esque discourse on the nature of the wilderness.

Fundamentally, though, the author's style falls short of other science-minded populist writers like Michael Crichton. Crichton may be a terrible writer, but he's got enough savvy to propel readers through his ideas almost before the readers know what's hit them. 'Lucy' gets bogged down in a lot of extraneous plot and character elements that take the reader out of the story itself.

If you are going to write a book about a Congo-born hybrid human/ape who comes to Chicago, only to become state wrestling champion, you had better do some hard work in grounding your story, lest you wind up with the literary equivalent of Teen Wolf Three.

Laurence Gonzales understood that as he wrote Lucy, perhaps even too well. And so, the first third of his novel about humanity, society, and the authenticity of both is spent alternating between a series of anecdotal, humanizing vignettes of Lucy's acclimatiom to life in human society and paragraph-length inner monologues that help orient us to the way Lucy (and her adoptive Mom) sees the world.

At times, this section lost my interest as Gonzales' florid prose fleshes out (and maybe even desensitizes us) to the novel's bizarre premise. The reader has to know, from the beginning, that Lucy's secret will be discovered, but Gonzales is so methodical that it begs the question: when? In fact, it is not until Chapter 20 when the novel's central conflict unfolds. Knowing that she will be found out, we are finally treated to the mysteries of by whom, and how the news will be received.

The publisher compares LUCY to a Crichton pseudo-science potboiler, and this is where the familiar themes and stock cast of characters from that genre emerge. Lucy becomes the target of the intolerant or exploitative machinations of the "religious right" and the military-industrial complex, respectively. Gonzales could be criticized that after having spent so much time giving depth to his protagonists, he has not seen fit to surround them with an equally vibrant set of adversaries or ancillary characters. In addition to Mom and best friend Amanda, her champions are a Doctor Without Borders, a tough-as-nails Native American biologist, and a bizarrely tortured retail mogul. This team faces off against a Bible-thumping preacher, a white supremacist, a conservative Senator, and - of course - unseen government assassins and a mad professor primate researcher at a secret government facility. The "US police state" exerts its full mysterious and yet utterly predictable wrath on Lucy.

While he hasn't set out to change the game, Gonzales does an admirable job of switching gears in this section. The florid reflections are replaced by a staccato style. The transition is palpable. Again, the parameters are stock: government, industry and mass media: BAD. It is to a reservation, to a lush backyard garden, and even to her dreams of the Congo jungle (seemingly stripped of the civil war violence that drove Lucy out in the first place) where Lucy and her cohorts find sanctuary.

Nonetheless, it is the melding of these two sections and styles in the book's emotional and beautiful conclusion where Gonzales' work soars. Gonzales blends the meandering introspection and the simple, declarative action into vivid, lush metaphor. The writing here is resplendent with the kind of context that wrings meaning out not only across the span of pages before, but across the great expanse of human experience, in its social, moral and legal dimensions; and in the anthropological exploration of what does and does not define humankind uniquely. What is tribal? What is primitive? How do we employ that which is modern and scientific and highly-organized to preserve that which is animal, instinctive and ancient.

Where Gonzales leaves the Crichton style behind is in his unwillingness - with one major exception - to allow what is best for the story to drive the action. Where the technological thriller would typically follow the path that delivers the most bang for the buck, Gonzales remains true to the novel's best intentions, not the cheapest tricks. The result is an undulating narrative that peaks and dips at an unexpected pace, but also provides correspondingly unexpected rewards.

LUCY reminds us why if a book is worth reading, it is worth reading from beginning to end. Only in the fullness of the entire work does Gonzales' novel reveal its beautiful balance and range. Enjoy!

Very Short Summary

After hearing all the buzz about this book I bought a copy for my Kindle. The story in short summary, Lucy is a teenage human/Bonobo hybrid, borne out of her father wanting to preserve the Bonobo species. Lucy winds up being cared for my a female scientist. When Lucy's cover as a normal teenage girl is blown all sorts of havoc ensues. I really wanted to like this book.

The Good:
A novel, thought provoking concept, strong female characters.

The Bad:
Lucy can communicate through the "stream" to other animals. It is never made clear but you could substitute either the "Matrix" or "The Force."

The dialogue at times lacked and felt wooden, with repeated phrases about crying, blue eyes, and laughter. A Spanish character's phonetically rendered accent is almost painful to read.

Missed opportunities abounded such as when Lucy would comment on modern society her adoptive mother Jenny would say something noncommittal to the effect of "Gee that's true." A chance to comment on a true outsider's observations were lost. Amanda (Lucy's girlfriend) was the best developed character in the book. You wanted to hear more arguing about evolution and genetic engineering and eugenics but none was forthcoming.


At times the soap box against (amongst other things): the Bush era White House is a bit too loud; along with all Christians being portrayed as intolerant bigots.

Plot holes abound. If Lucy was under siege in America don't you think another country might have taken her in? (Minor Spoiler) When she is rescued in one scene it is not told how. The paparazzi surrounds the house, but later the characters can drive out to a friends house without being pursued. Lucy is kidnapped but as a celebrity does even the government think they can keep it under wraps?

The ending was weak and it was one of those cases where you just could not get involved with the characters.

Has this been a novel aimed at teens or "tweens" some of this novel's faults may have been forgivable but as an adult work of fiction I found myself constantly wishing it would be better and live up to the early hype.

Update:

It is a shame I am taking a beat down in the "is this review helpful" column. I guess there can be no bad books as there can be no bad reviews.

I don't care I still can't recommend this books. Sorry!

Fascinating concept- so much room to explore thought-provoking issues. But the author fell completely flat. The science was nauseatingly unbelievable, but the dialogue and human interactions even worse. Looking to explore the idea of what makes us "human?" Skip this book and read Genesis by Bernard Beckett!