This reads a lot like the Wayfayer series does (but less polished and more crass) and chances are if you enjoy that, you'll probably enjoy this.

This book is zany fun, with bizarre humor and an entertaining writing style. Although some of the humor is rather juvenile and the characters could use a bit more development, it's enjoyable overall. I had a good time.

The Galactic Zookeeper's Guide to Heists and Husbandry, a space opera by A.C. Huntley, was an absolute romp! I had so much fun reading this book and it's absolute quirkiness!

I started this book and I think my first reaction was, "umm what??" This weird humor is what kept me going though. It was a very fast paced book with twists and turns around every corner. I loved Saffron, her zookeeping job, and the two headed llama. Again, what? Oooh and throw in a heist and I'm here for it!

Loved it!

Fun premise, but this book did not live up to any expectations I had.

Saffron Savage is a zookeeper in a dilapidated zoo-planet. She gets the worst jobs - shit shovelling, literally - and her description of her workplace contains undertexts of discrimination and harassment. She can't leave as she is up to her eyeballs in student loans, and one day is asked by a scheming ex, Weasel, to help him adbuct and traffic the zoo's umemeh - an animal resembling a two-headed llama - for a large sum of money. Expecting him to frame her in the process, she knocks him out and decides to hand over the umemeh to the buyer herself, and things go awfully wrong as soon as she tries.

I'm going to be completely honest here and admit that this was hard to settle into. The narration is stream-of-consciousness style with Saffron speaking directly to the reader, and that might make it easy to sympathise with her, but it does come with the disadvantage of making her seem supremely selfish, and distinctly unkind to anyone and everyone around her. Since the reader follows her thoughts and frantic actions as she tells shortsighted and badly thought out lies every time she's in a jam (which is a lot of the time), it got hard to settle in with this intergalactic setting due to the constraints of these plot blinders the author forced me to put on.

There are space pirates and battles, a crew that she grows fond of rather suddenly, a little bit of romance, but I couldn't enjoy any of the elements because of the repetitive nature of her internal monologues. I waited for her to redeem herself and show some kind of good behaviour in this process, but something about a female character judging and looking down on a hyper-feminine one just for the sake of it, really puts me off, and it did here too. Well, she's determined and would not be stopped in her endeavour, but I found this story to be more of an overall mess than the romp the synopsis promises it to be.

Long story short, this book has an interesting premise ruined by a deplorable main character. The insufficient exploration of setting and the lack of nuance in the narration made me unable to shake off my distaste for the execution.

honestly i've beent trying to read this book on and off for the past two to three months. the premise and setting were both very interesting to me but i did not feel particularly compelled to continue reading. it was not for me, but still, my thanks to the publisher and author for this copy.

If you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide and looking for a new choice, this is it!

I laughed so hard! Saffron is such a fun character!! And the author's world-building skills bounce the reader all over the place. It's such a fun adventure! (The names of stations & stops along the way are ridiculously creative, like "The Hobo's Towel" 😉)

Imagine if the only way off one of the worst planets, where you're stuck in the worst possible zookeeper job, is to steal a valuable animal (and a ship) and maybe take out a few baddies in the process. How do you keep a two-headed magical llama alive while you're bouncing from planet to planet, ship to ship?

How Saffron manages to stay alive herself is an adventure definitely worth the ride.

"I've been trained in xeno-zoology. This is exactly the kind of opportunity I'd hoped to get straight out of school."

"I do have an escape plan. But I'm going to need help."

Improbable but hilarious!

The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide to Heists and Husbandry sounded like a really fun romp through space with a two headed llama and a questionable zookeeper. I really liked the idea of animals in space, and the concept just sounded like a ton of fun, so I was very interested in reading it. Unfortunately, that’s the most interesting it ever was for me. Oh, the main character’s voice was fun, but it started to grate on me after a while. Though, as usual, the second half was much more interesting than the first half.

I really liked the idea of a zookeeper getting tangled up with a mob boss who ended up having a crazy sort of base and being, secretly, on the run with a two headed llama. I couldn’t wait to see how it all played out, and I was intrigued by the romance. What I got, unfortunately, was just a ton of potty humor. Now, I can see how it might be funny, but I have two kids under the age of ten and I am perpetually living in a potty joke right now, so I highly doubt I’m the right audience for this book. It just went on and on with literally no end in sight. I feel like a huge part of this book was supposed to be kept afloat by these endless potty jokes, and I was not amused.

Potty aside, I did like the characters. They were a bit cardboard, but they had distinct, fun personalities. It was easy to keep most of them straight in my head, because a spaceship’s crew is not small. I felt a little betrayed by the promise of romance, though, because I’m pretty sure he hated her for most of the book no matter what he tried to say later. I just kept waiting and waiting for it to happen, but it doesn’t really go anywhere until the second half, when things really go sideways. Fortunately, I think the romance really started to happen after she came clean, and I’m glad she eventually turned around. Her growth in the second half was great, though, and I felt like that made wading through all the poop worth it.

Overall, I can see where this might be a fun story. There were interesting characters with fun personalities, a terrific two headed llama that was obviously my favorite character, travels through space, and actual growth in a main character. It’s just that the constant potty jokes pulled this down a lot for me. So, it isn’t a terrible book; it’s just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

‘The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide to Heists and Husbandry’ is just as fun as the title implies. There’s heists, there’s fun animals, there’s found family—truly everything I enjoy. The characters are layered and complex in their own ways, especially our main character Saffron. I love her, she’s so freaking annoying because she’s so in over her head but so lovable anyway.

I picked this up on a whim and I’m so glad I did! A great adventure, truly so fun.

Thank you to NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Bena House for the eARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. I had to force myself to continue this book, for some reason I found it really slow to start. Not that there wasn't action-I just couldn't get into it. But once I became vested wow-I really enjoyed it! Full of laughter and snark. Saffron was not what I expected but I ended up really liking her, The captain well what was not to like? Very convoluted but fun. For me, it was well worth the read. 3.5 stars

This galactic zookeeper is terrible at both heists and husbandry. She shouldn't be guiding anyone.

As a former professional aquarist (ie, zookeeper equivalent at an aquarium) who loves heist novels, I was very excited to read this book. I was hoping for a clever, funny, well-constructed romp of a story. Unfortunately it isn't any of those things. For one, I am deeply offended by the premise of this novel. What the author gets right about husbandry is that it's often underpaid and full of shit, both literally and figuratively. You also generally know that going into it. No animal husbandry professional is going to traffick and mistreat an animal the way Saffron does, let alone an endangered, highly-protected species. That is ridiculous. Some people might be willing or able to look past that, but I am professionally and personally insulted and I refuse.

I'm giving this three stars because the pacing is fast and snappy and the writing is okay, and I will always enjoy sci-fi biology where it exists. And because I tend to reserve anything lower than three stars for books that are truly awful. I think the characters, worldbuilding, and plot are all pretty undeveloped, but there is at least visible intention. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. I wouldn't recommend it.

The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide to Heists and Husbandry was an inventive and fun adventure! THis was a great space romp but I could not connect with the anti-heroine though some may love Ronnie!

Almost as good as visiting an alien zoo planet in person.
I say almost because when we know what goes on behind the scenes of something it takes away a bit of the magic. However, we all want these kinds of details about galactic zoos because we can't go there.

The Galactic Zookeeper’s Guide to Heists and Husbandry was such an original sci-fi read. Like any good sci-fi book, this one had so many interesting and super detailed original animals. Who doesn’t like the sound of a super dumb, double-headed llama whose arteries are a cure for impotence?!

There were so many things to love about this book. It was fast-paced, very original and pulled you in. The deeper plot was wonderful. The one reason, and it is a pretty big reason, that this book is not rated higher for me is because Saffron is the absolute worst human being ever! She is just awful. Almost all of the other reviews I have read of this have the same issues with her that I do, so I will not be redundant. All I will say is that this could have been a 5-star read, if Saffron was even a tad more decent – you read that right, I am just asking for decent, not good.

Overall, I am happy that I read this for the world, other shipmates and animals. I will definitely be reading more by this author, but am hopeful that the MC won’t be such an utter trash of a human.

I tried with this book. I really did.. It wound up being another one I dreaded picking up again. The language is inconsistent and the main character is incredibly unlikeable. There is literally nothing that made me want to root for her and her fruitless endeavor to kidnap the pseudo-llama. I kept waiting for it to get better but I just couldn't take it anymore.

As a fan of the more quirky side of science fiction I expected a bit more out of this book given the title and the blurb.

The animals tend to take a back burner in lieu of a in depth exploration of a woman's trauma. I myself am actually a fan of an unlikable main character. However, I think in order to pull that off successfully there needs to be incredibly well fleshed out back story and development so that although a reader may not like the character they can still empathize with them and understand why they act the way they do. At times this did show through with the FMC, Saffron, but with the fast pacing of the book I think there wasn't enough time to really build it up enough. There is a lot of potential with this story but for me personally the pacing and marketing really offset what it could have been.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher Bena House in exchange for an honest review.

The Galactic Zookeeper's Guide to Heists and Husbandry is a fun and relatable space romp, of feeling trapped between bad choices and worse choices, of trying to stay true to your values despite being in a horrible situation - even when the situation is of your own making.

A story of forgiveness, of community.

Saffron Savage (Ronnie to her ex, weasel and Savvy to a crew that she happens to stowaway aboard their cargo transporter early in the story) is a xeno-zoologist drowning in debt, stuck on the zoo planet of Hialeah where she is one of only 3 female workers. Which means that Saffron experiences a lot - LOT - of sexual harassment. At the beginning of our story, Saffron is beat down, depressed, hopeless, helpless and trapped. When her ex Weasel comes t0 her with a scheme to steal the extremely rare and endangered umemeh from the zoo in exchange for enough money to get her off Hialeah and out of debt? She can't resist. But not with helping Weasel - nope, that asshole's screwed her over and she's NOT about to give him a chance to screw this up for her. So she ditches him and takes the job over herself. And finds that she's in way, way, way over her head with no idea how to get herself out of the mess she keeps digging herself further & further into.

As someone with a wildlife biology degree, drowning in student loan debt? OOF, Savvy is relatable as hell. Having to take a mediocre job, not getting the well-paying ones, high competition for the good ones, not being "good enough" for them because there's so few of them? OOF, I say. OOF. I love Savvy. I can completely relate to how she got to where she did.

If you enjoy plans where everything goes wrong (until it somehow goes right), unlikely lovers, adversaries to lovers, found family and redemption arcs? The Galactic Zookeeper's Guide to Heists and Husbandry is for you.

TWs for sexual harassment, allusion to rape (in the past, not said outright or described), animal death, drug use, alcohol abuse, drugging others

2,5 stars, rounded up! This was funny and entertaining and fast paced, in spite of my not liking the main character too much. I think I misread the blurb or thought this would be something else, but it's heavier on the humour than the science fiction, or so I reckon.

I wanted to love this but it didn’t work out for me. The writing was hard to follow at times and the story seemed a bit dated and predictable.

Based on the title/description, I thought this would be a humorous space romp with found family, but it was not that. I wanted to DNF after the first few chapters but kept going becuase I wanted to give it a chance since I was reading as an ARC.
Overall, I didn't enjoy the main character, and the book just didn't work for me.

Not bad. The story is a little silly, but that pretty clear from the description. I didn't always stay engaged, but this is a light fun read.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!