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I opened Endangered by Eliot Schrefer, took one look at the photo of the baby bonobo, and significantly increased in understanding for the mother of the Ikea monkey. I thought, “Gimme that baby! I wannit!”

So hello good book design: I was hooked before page one.

Set in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Endangered is about a girl, Sophie, who rescues an infant bonobo, Otto, and brings him home to the sanctuary her Congolese mother has instituted for the rehabilitation of bonobos who have been abducted from the wild by bushmeat traders. The reader falls in love with Otto just as Sophie does, and from then on the stakes are high. Sophie goes to great lengths, at the risk of her own safety and life, to keep Otto safe, and the reader sticks with her to the very end to ensure that the little guy makes it.

You like adventure stories? Animal stories? War/dystopian stories? This book has it all. Sophie survives in the sanctuary with the bonobos for several weeks until she is no longer safe there. She begins a journey through the Congo to find her mother at the site where the bonobos are released into the wild. There are a lot of guns in the book. There are lots of bugs in this book. Deliciously horrible. You are never allowed to stop worrying about Otto. You are never …

» Continue Reading: Round 2, Match 2: Endangered vs The Fault in Our Stars