Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Albrecht en wij.
This seemed interesting to me based on the premise. Spoilers ahead.
When some of the last living rhinos (among them a male named Albrecht) are sent to live at Artis Zoo in the Netherlands, this causes quite the uproar when the other last rhinos start dying and eventually Albrecht remains the only living one. Zoo director Edo decides that he wants to do a grand tour across several stadiums in Europe, where they'll be transporting Albrecht for a wide audience to see in his last days s an attraction. Opposing Edo is Sariah, a former colleague of his who is firmly against this tour and wishes for Albrecht to spend his final days in peace and quiet until he passes.
Story-wise I'd say that this was a pretty darn interesting book. We thankfully aren't at a stage in life on Earth where we're dealing with the last ever living rhinos (yet), but I feel that this is a pretty realistic depiction of how things could go down. I can definitely see the last living wild rhinos being captured and used for a breeding program in captivity in a last-ditch effort to save the species. And of course this would attract the necessary attention from the public, with possibly even some late poaching attempts being done. So I think that this book was an interesting exploration of this would-be scenario (let's just pray it never actually happens and rhinos continue to exist).
What I was less into was the POVs. Well, two of them, anyway. We get three: Edo, the zoo director of Artis who wants to make money off of Albrecht; seasoned colleague Frank, who also works at the zoo and usually backs up Edo; and Sariah, a rhinoceros expert who came over from South Africa to work at Artis with the last living ones of their kind. She also has somewhat of a relationship with Edo, at least at first.
And I wouldn't say that any of these POVs are poorly written; They do feel like realistic characters and their development and traits all make sense and line up. But man, I couldn't stand Edo. He's just such a prick who cares more about the money and hype he can generate from Albrecht than the actual animal itself. To him, the park is everything. And I don't know, as an animal lover this just really irked me.
Frank is a little better, but in the end he ends up enabling Edo quite a lot, so he's not much better in my books. I did like Sariah a lot, though, as her values align the most with mine and she's kinda the only character talking sense here (at least to me). No, having the last rhino go on an event tour across many stadiums isn't good for the animal, it isn't rocket science, anyone can see that. Wanting him to be able to pass away quietly without much fanfare is a logical choice here. So I was constantly rooting for Sariah...but I legit couldn't stand Edo's way of handling things.
So, again, characters are decently-written, but I couldn't stand two of our POVs, which hampered my enjoyment of the book a bit.
I also personally didn't vibe with the POV's all being written in the "I" form. Since we're POV hopping, you're basically left to figure out whose POV we're in through context clues in every chapter rather than just each chapter being titled with a character's name to make things easy (or writing in the third person form). Maybe this works for others, but for me it didn't work as much.
Still, I did enjoy the book for its story, Sariah as a protagonist, and the idea of thoroughly exploring this scenario that isn't too far away from being a reality in real life if we keep killing rhinos at this rate.
Rating: 3.5/5
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