This was a 12 and a half hour audiobook. Tragic, I know. This book is also an award-winning movie, by the way. I haven’t watched it, the book is probably better anyway.
Elisa is a 30-something year old mute. She lives in a trashy apartment above a movie theater, next to an older man named Giles. Elisa works at a science facility as a janitor with a bunch of other “undesirable” people, like her best friend Zelda. Zelda is a middle aged black woman, and she absolutely adores Elisa. There is something truly special about their relationship. One night, a new specimen is moved into F1, a room that Elisa normally cleans. This specimen is called, “the asset,” to Colonel Richard Strickland. Mr. Strickland is the antagonist of this story. He carries a lot of baggage from his time in Korea, and from the Amazon where he searched for the asset. Strickland considers himself to be a “jungle god.” So, he’s delusional. He has a painkiller addiction. He’s crazy. Elisa can’t help but be curious, though, about the asset. So, she visits one night, and feeds it a single hard-boiled egg. From there, a relationship blossoms between a mute woman and a Amazonian creature. Some time later, Strickland receives orders to kill the asset, which he is more than happy to do. Anything to get back to his normal life. Elisa witnesses a brutal torturing of the creature, and decides it’s time to break him out. So, together, Elisa, Zelda, and Giles do just that.
Some type of bestiality happened in this book. It was a little disturbing (though it was only 2 pages). They portray the creature as one, but with some human aspects, so the scene may not have been intentional but... It was weird for me.
I would not necessarily recommend this book. I didn’t get anything from the story but the idea that love can exist anywhere. The romance portion of the story was not very appealing or in depth. The relationships between Elisa and her friends was very sweet, and it is an example of true friendship. Other than that, I wouldn’t read this again, or bring it up when talking about my favorite books.
