I've read Earle's other animal books, so why not this one? Spoilers ahead.
Nettie is a girl who finds herself in an unusual situation: Having to keep a sickly baby gorilla safe from a greedy businessman who wants to sell him. Aiding her is Toff, a boy whom Nettie isn't sure she can trust.
It's nothing great, but not bad, either. Just a pretty straightforward "rescue the poor animal" type of story. Part of me kinda wishes that Adonis had been a little older while this took place so he had more of a personality, and felt like less of a plot device and more of an actual character. But what we got isn't bad. I know that you can't exactly assign a lot of personality to a newborn baby.
I also enjoyed the character of Nettie. Toff was...okay, I guess. I wasn't really second-guessing his loyalty to Nettie as much as the book wanted me to, but he was a decent deuteragonist. I wasn't as invested in his character journey, however, Nettie was the more interesting of the two if you ask me.
The plot was simple enough (like I said before, "rescue the poor animal"), but it kept me consistently engaged. Even if it's a pretty cliché plot with a pretty cliché outcome, the journey to get there was still well-written and interesting.
I didn't vibe as much with the villain, though, he felt very one-dimensional and boring to me. Just any type of greedy businessman/animal trafficker type character with not too much to set him apart. If Toff had truly been our main character maybe there could've been a bit more focus on the abusive relationship between Goliath and the boy, but as is it all felt pretty surface-level. Not bad, but it could've been explored more.
Overall I do like this book, though, I think it's a solid prequel to When the Sky Falls.
Rating: 4/5
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