Book Review: The Gift of the Deer by Helen Hoover

 

This one seemed interesting. Found my copy at a secondhand book market. 

In this memoir, the author looks back on her time she spent with her husband in a house in the woods, where they both befriended the local deer population after nursing a one-eyed buck back to health.

Overall a cute idea for a memoir. I love animals, I love nature, so by all accounts I probably should love it. And there definitely are good elements here. The author clearly loves animals and you can sense the connection she formed with the deer and other animals around her home.

...But then there's the elephant in the room. Which is being fed. Or well, the deer are. Yeah, the author basically keeps ignoring wildlife safety rule #1 which is to keep a respectful distance and not feed them. She feeds the deer, she feeds some squirrels, and while she's thankfully not stupid enough to feed a bear she is still willing to get close enough to it to (yes, really) pet it. This was just painful to read. 

I know this book was written in a different time. Maybe back in the sixties and before it wasn't looked down upon as much to feed and closely interact with wildlife, but that doesn't make reading this any less painful. Because it's not just a woman and her husband feeding these animals, it has real consequences. Several of the deer Hoover sees grow up actually die because of hunters, and you cannot get me to believe that them being accustomed to humans didn't at least in part play a role in their deaths. Some of these, especially the (grown up) fawns, are so used to being given food by the Hoovers that they very well could've lost their human shyness. So yeah, several of the deer end up dead by the end of it and while sometimes there are other causes (e.g. wolves) there are some which got shot and obviously them not being human-shy didn't help in these situations.

So yeah, despite having a cute premise I cannot give this book a recommendation. It just felt uncomfortable to read with how irresponsible the author acts the entire time. It's one thing for her to nurse a sickly Peter (one of the deer) back to health, it's another for her and her husband to keep feeding these deer generation after generation to the point they're not longer very human-shy. 

Rating: 3/5