Review: FIERCE KINGDOM, by Gin Phillips

 Review: FIERCE KINGDOM, by Gin Phillips

Audio book
Penguin Audio, 2017
Narrated by Cassandra Phillips

My Rating (out of 5)
⭐⭐⭐½

A Good book, but ultimately not one I will remember as one of my great reads. 

The story follows Joan and her son Lincoln who are on an outing to the zoo.  As the zoo is closing and Joan is walking to the gate to exit, she finds herself in an active shooter situation.  She flees back into the zoo with her young son.

The remainder of the story is a detailed account of the next three hours as she tries to hide with her young son and keep both him and herself safe. 

The parts of the book that didn't not work well for me, was first, I had difficulty really connecting with the characters for much of the first half of the book. I think I would have done better with the book if the real tension was "moved up" in the story line a little. I also found the ending a little too loose for my liking. I don't need to have my hand held and led down the path so to speak, but even at that, it really did not leave me feeling as though all the issues I wanted resolved were alluded to sufficiently to provide closure to all the loose ends.

Of the better points of this book, is the reality of trying to keep a very young child quiet and calm in any situation, let alone one as stressful as the one created in this story.  Also, Gin did not shy away from having her character Joan face some very difficult moral decisions.  We all would like to imagine ourselves as heroes, but if it came down to the line, how would we really react?  I could explore this more, but without posting spoilers, I will have to leave it at that. 

The narrator was good, but I would suggest that if you were planning on getting into this book, that you do so in either digital or print format simply because much of the dialogue is from a very young child, and is in my opinion something I would rather have as my internal soundtrack, rather than listening to any adult imitating a four year old for that much dialogue.  This is not a jab at the narrator, or the author, just an observation based on my own preferences in relation to this particular story.

Happy reading
Christine