This book is narrated by a lovable and curious spider monkey named Beep. With populations dwindling amongst his own tribe, Beep sets out on a quest to go beyond the mountains of his home in the Costa Rican rainforest and find a mate to bring back. Little does he know just how far his journey will take him when he stumbles upon Inga, a young girl who is vacationing with her family. The two develop a heartfelt connection that has Inga smuggling Beep home to New York. Inga is able to communicate with Beep on an emotional level as she is dubbed by Beep and the other animals they encounter, as a "sensitive" or someone who is in tune with nature and the environment. Once in New York the pair continue on various adventures including attending a speaking engagement by Greta Thunberg, visiting the Central Park Zoo, and their final destination, the Bronx Zoo, where Beep is destined to meet his soul mate. However, things take an unexpected turn as the zoo animals rally to free themselves.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. It is a little difficult at first to understand "monkey English" but once I got in a rhythm, I really loved seeing Beep's interactions with the human world and his growing bond with Inga. Once we got to the events at the Bronx Zoo however, I got pretty lost and was not understanding the sequence of events or the logic behind them. I believe the end goal was to give an introspective look at where we are headed if we do not take climate change seriously, but I felt that this goal could have been achieved through furthering the relationship between Beep and Inga and having Inga's awareness and activism grow, without introducing the new plot of the animal "uprising" (for lack of a better word).

All that being said, I am not typically a lit fic reader, so this book may take on a vaster meaning and be better understood by someone who is accustomed to conceptualizing more speculative language than I am. In the hands of the right reader, this could be enjoyed to its fullest potential.

I found this book fascinating. Told from the perspective of a monkey, it sheds light on the destruction that humans are causing to the environment, wrapped in a monkey quest and ending in a gently apocalyptic love story. It was hard to put down.

Oh Bill Roorbach! A few years ago I stumbled across <I>The Cure for Love</I> and then my writing group dove into <I> Writing Life Stories </I>, but in characteristic fashion, I managed to forget how solid, generous, and supple a writer he is.

Enter <I>Beep</I>, a charming if difficult to characterize novel with a squirrel-monkey as a main character. Yes. Beep, a monkey with an imperfect grasp of English, but a thoroughly modern set of problems: he leaves his troupe in search of lost family, only to find himself scooped up by a well-heeled 11-year-old on vacation in Costa Rica and transported, willy-nilly amidst the girl's stuffed animals, to a Manhattan apartment.

I started to write, "that's when things get nutty," but that characterization is unfair. For a clever, self-aware squirrel monkey and the sensitive tween whom he grows to love, the story is never <i>not</> a bit nutty. Beep is on a quest, and we are just here to witness: Greta Thunberg plays a role, as does the liberation of most of the Bronx Zoo, a cross-dressing bus driver, and a pair of Buddhist monks.

I hesitate to quote from my pre-publication copy, but the writing! the writing! The beginning “I am Beep, monkey. I live in the world of monkeys near saltwater on the sunset side of the vast beyond.” Beep bonding with his human, Inga, “The old uncles say there are many kinds of wub and a new one befell me in that moment, suffused me: buddies.” (Me too, Beep, me too!), and this about the age-old communication that humans have mostly forgotten: “There arose a vibration, a thought moving through not only the trees but all things green, and all things. The forest always knows you’re coming, and that’s how the rocks know, and so the lichens, the mosses.”

If you loved <i>Watership Down, </i>or <i>Remarkably Bright Creatures,</i> or <i>Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile</i> you’ll love this tender and beautifully written novel. If you have any feeling for the ecological doom sweeping over our shared world, this story will be serve as both a gentle warning and a heartening call to action. If you are neither, I prescribe this book as cure.

Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the eARC in exchange for my unfettered opinion.

While I was excited to read this based on the description, I DNFed around 20%. Told from the perspective of the monkey Beep, who is trying to cross Costa Rica and meets a girl who he becomes friends with (this is as far as I got). The writing, from the perspective of the monkey frequently used language such as (and here I paraphrase) The you-mens in their meddle goer (the humans in their metal car) and she tossed a pebber on the paddy-o (she tossed a pepper on the patio). It is intended to give you a feel for how the monkey is processing the world, but I did find it irritating enough to not continue. I hoped that this language would peter out as the book progressed, but around 20% where they were in an airport, it actually ramped up as the monkey described the travel process. I was really interested in the story, but the voice of the monkey narrator was not to my liking.