Beep

by Bill Roorbach

In the tradition of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures, an ebullient, funny—and hugely original— novel about the friendship between a brilliant young girl and a perceptive squirrel monkey, the power of youth, and the way forward for a planet in crisis.

This immensely enjoyable novel takes a sweet and personable squirrel monkey, Beep, to help us see the world we live in more clearly. While intending only to go deeper and higher into the Costa Rican rain forest to find a mate, he instead meets Inga, a kindly and loving American teenager on vacation with her family. Inadvertently, often hilariously, Beep makes his way back to New York with Inga, and with her courageously devoted help—and a bit of inspiration from a visiting Greta Thunberg, along with a dramatic zoo escape—and with the help of just about every animal on earth, Beep manages to change the destiny of the world. Along the way, he has a great deal to say about humanity and the divisions among us, our alien cities, our strange practices, our false superiority, our vanity, our entitlement, our folly, as well as our beauty, and our promise, unfulfilled.

With a cast of equally engaging and perceptive animals, Beep is irresistibly appealing. Neither earnest nor preachy, it is full of humor and inspiration and remarkable new ways of understanding how we live. Beep conveys an urgent message—the increasing threats to our planet—lightly, urging us to wake up while there is still time.

Genres: Fiction, Animals, Book Club, Humor, Audiobook, Climate Change Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published July 16, 2024

About the author

Bill Roorbach's newest novel is The Remedy For Love, coming October 2014 from Algonquin Books. Life Among Giants, also from Algonquin, is in development for a multi-year series at HBO, and won the 2014 Maine Literary Award in Fiction. Big Bend: Stories has just be re-released by Georgia in its Flannery O'Connor Award series. Temple Stream is soon to be re-released by Down East Books. Bill is also the author of the romantic memoir SUMMERS WITH JULIET, the novel THE SMALLEST COLOR, the essay collection INTO WOODS. The tenth anniversary edition of his craft book, WRITING LIFE STORIES, is used in writing programs around the world. His short fiction has been published in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, and dozens of other magazines, journals, and websites, and has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts, and won an O. Henry Prize. He lives in western Maine where he writes full time.

For more information about Bill Roorbach, see www.billroorbach.com, www.lifeamonggiantsthebook.com, and be sure to enjoy his blog and videos at www.billanddavescocktailhour.com. Follow him on Twitter: @​billroorbach.

Reviews

[Jenni DaVinCat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that I may not be the target audience for this book. I found this book to be a struggle to get through for a number of reasons which I'll definitely relay. This book is about a monkey named Beep who is more or less accidentally kidnapped and transported to New York. I keep seeing this book associated with Remarkably Bright Creatures but I found that the only similarity was animal POV. So...if that's how you've come across this book...be warned. This book is nothing like Shelby Van Pelt's amazing octopus book.

The whole book is written from Beep's POV so a lot of the English words he uses are approximations. For the most part, it's not that difficult to read. He'll say things like "wub" instead of love, "You-mens" instead of humans. It does get a little annoying though.

The first half of the book I found to be really boring. The first half was Beep's journey to New York. It felt like there was way too much time dedicated to that journey vs. the second half of the book which was when it got a little bit interesting but also a little bit unhinged.

Beep and his girl attend a Greta Thunberg rally where she demands that all these children change the world. This somehow leads to the girl and Beep being told about a prophesy where Beep will fix the world from all the damage that's been caused to it and animal-kind. So, of course, logically they liberate all of the animals in the Bronx Zoo and then Beep takes off with his new monkey girlfriend to go home to Costa Rica where he and the rest of the animals on the planet, trees and a select few humans somehow mentally kill most of humankind leaving 1 in 1000 alive. So yes...unhinged.

If you didn't read the spoiler, it does spoil the whole rest of the book but I feel like it also explains why I found it to be unhinged. It went from something that I could rationally understand to this completely different book than what we're presented with. Basically, it is a very thinly veiled statement about what humans are doing to the Earth. I get it. I don't deny it but I think the message of death to most humans might have been a little much. Even if we're responsible for a lot of bad things environmentally.

I usually love animal books, especially when we have their POV but this one just didn't grab me. I didn't have a good time reading this book and can't say that I recommend it. If you loved Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures, steer clear of this book.

[Amy Linton · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

Enter Beep, 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 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 the age-old communication that you-mans 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 Watership Down, or Remarkably Bright Creatures, or Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile 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.

[Makenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wubbed this book 💚🐒

[Karen Wales · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I really wanted to love this book but couldn't reconcile myself to the ending. I think there were other ways to get the message across. I also found there were times that I didn't understand the monkey speak. That said, I hope that I am a worthy you-men.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last book I read, coincidentally, also had an animal protagonist/narrator, Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch. And I've read a couple of others: Open Throat by Henry Hoke, and a few years ago, the incredibly popular and remarkably sweet Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which is used as a comparable book—"in the tradition of . . ."—in the promo copy for Beep.

I suppose you could make a very thin case for that, but really Beep is its own animal, its own language, and nothing like any of the aforementioned books. So best to ignore comparisons and maybe even the reviews of this book, if you are a reader who likes to think for yourself. In fact, ignore my review.

But here it is anyway:

Beep, a monkey, has his own language, and it took me all of a couple of pages to get used to reading it, and then I found it hilarious. I love the invention, Beep's unique point of view, his equanimity (think Eloise of the children's books, or Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and ability to approach things with curiosity, finding interpretations that make sense to him, simultaneously satirizing our human ways. Example:

Everymonkey knows that all things are in moodly communication at all times, and not only like with like. And though this natural law seemed at best barely true for most you-mens, when I shrieked it seemed to mean to Inga just what it meant to my troupe back home: Stop! I see food!

At this point, Beep is with a human (you-men) girl named Inga ("the strongest girl in the world" according to Beep), a tween who has absconded with him from his Costa Rica home to my Upper West Side neighborhood in NYC.

This is the story of an animal revolution with the help of the strongest girl in the world, and that as well as other flavors reminds me of Pippi Longstocking, which I haven't read since I was a child; both Pippi and this book give me a feeling of wild strength and adventure.

If you hurt for the way we humans have killed, commodified, and confined animals, this book is a medicinal fantasy, a mythological healing.

The books I mentioned in the first paragraph all deal with telepathy. In this book, that is called "moodling"—transferring information using the mood of it. I don't remember what it was called, or if it was named in the other books. All of the books also share a reference to humans who are open to this communication. In Beep, the humans who can hear moodling and therefore help the monkeys escape back to their home are called "sensitives." Inga is a sensitive. So are a pair of Buddhist monks.

Since I, too, recently published a novel that deals with all this (I called it "thought-talking"), and since I know this is not fiction, I'm heartened to feel that perhaps we, as a culture, are evolving to becoming more conversant in the language of all animals … and plants. (I use the specific "culture" to refer to Western European culture; Indigenous cultures have conversed through "thought-talking" and "moodling" for centuries.)

I loved this book.

[Ravay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars because the writing was beautiful and funny and brilliant and the book has an amazing creative narrative voice! The author pulled off something admirable in creating Beep’s character and Monkeyspeak here! And I was all in for the first 100 pages or so!

Unfortunately, somewhere in the middle, probably about the point where the big cats were released from the Bronx zoo, it started feeling long and tedious to me. I was instantly transported back to when I was a ten-year old in church, waiting and waiting and waiting for the interminable rambling sermon to end and that was my experience with the rest of the book.

What started as a charming fresh fish-out-of-water story (a stowaway squirrel monkey in New York) gradually evolved into a REALLY LOOOOOOOONG, preachy, and apparently unedited sermon about saving the environment, albeit one badly disguised as a monkey’s quest for love and finding his way home.

And that Deus ex Monkey ending…it was something but it didn’t feel very well-earned to me.

Several readers have suggested maybe a different medium would have been better for the story and I agree—the book felt like it had too many things to say for the novel format.

[Melanie Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the heck did I just read? Pretty good for a monkey book.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

It takes awhile to adjust to the “monkey speech” narration of this novel. Words are misspelled and mispronounced from “Beep, Monkey”’s point of views In the beginning of the book, Beep leaves his troupe in search of a mate and comes across an 11-year-old girl, Inga, outside her family’s vacation home in Costa Rica. Inga smuggles Beep back to her home in NY, where he learns about humans and follows her to school. Then, things get crazy.

Beep is told by animals at large that he is to fulfill a prophecy to free animals from the tyranny of humans. He and Inga lead an animal rebellion and free all of the animals in the Bronx Zoo, after which Beep returns (with the help of sympathetic humans who can speak with him through emotional sensitivity) to Costa Rica, where he fulfills the prophecy: he unites all animals and plants across the globe, and they simultaneously shoot out a killing wave of love, which mass genocides humanity. The remaining 1 in 1,000 surviving humans are wiped of their memories (also from the shockwave of love) and carry on living more eco friendly existences, unaware of where they came from… what the heck did I just read?

[Em theglitterybookworm_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

while i love books that share light on a heavy topics, the preachy voice that was coming out of what was supposed to be a monkey’s mouth, was very tacky in my opinion

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel. What starts as a kind of comedic fantasy about a young girl on vacation in Costa Rica smuggling a monkey back to her home in Manhattan deftly evolves into a larger scale message about protecting our environment from it's greatest threat. The story is told entirely by the title character, Beep, the monkey experiencing the befuddlement of NYC. Sharp satire, thrilling action, and a deep, surprising finish all come together in a very satisfying way.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the beginning, Beep is a charming and humorous tale of a squirrel monkey discovering the human world. It is at its most engaging when it projects innocence and holds up a mirror to human society. It is a mixture of the Odyssey, Elf, White Fang and Curious George. Roorbach clearly put a lot of effort into getting inside the mind of a monkey.

The book starts out merely implausible and finishes in the realm of surreal fantasy. Unfortunately, Roorbach decided to use this book as a vehicle to develop an environmental moralism that veers into ecofascism. The author clearly expended much less thought on the nuances of human-environmental relations and environmental ethics than he did studying monkey behavior. One could perhaps excuse his simplistic approach as being a realistic viewpoint for a monkey who spent his life in a small stretch of Costa Rican rainforest and suddenly must confront the industrialized human world, but Roorbach presents his narrator's thoughts without any trace of irony or criticism, going to extreme lengths to present the titular monkey as an authoritative voice for the entire natural world.

The ending of the book is the most glaring mistake. [Spoilers ahead] After a narratively engaging climax that feels appropriate to Beep's character--disrupting the relationship between humans and animals and winning over humans with charismatic acts of bravery--Roorbach tacks on about 75 pages of Beep's return odyssey. During this section, Roorbach seems to forget a lot of Beep's innocence. Instead of being curious about the human world, Beep suddenly possesses deep and infallible ancestral knowledge. The action, which had previously been fast-paced and chaotic, slows to a methodical crawl as Roorbach details every monkey thought and movement with no regard to relevance to the broader narrative. This epilogue does nothing for the larger story, but it does suggest Roorbach may have some strange genocidal fantasies.

[Holly Schilling · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - I just can’t. The book is written in Beep, the spider monkeys POV and the way it’s written is ANNOYING! I get that it’s fiction and all but what I had gotten through was SUPER unrealistic. You can’t just take a Spider Monkey from its habitat and board a plane without people raising questions. And the parents were just chill with it too? I couldn’t read past page 60 🥱

[Mary Mages · Rating 3 out of 5]

a fable of the renewal of the planet, by the animals.

Clever, but predictable tale. Reads best in the beginning. Felt rather preachy, though I agree with the moral of the sermon.

[Donna Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beep is squirrel monkey, born and raised in the rain forest of Costa Rica. He’s not a baby anymore, and his old uncles have informed him that all the females are spoken for, and he must travel to a new area to mate and propagate. It’s tricky business, though, because human encroachment has separated the forests from one another, so Beep cannot get to the next forest without going through areas developed by humans. Beep’s odyssey takes him much farther than anyone imagined, and in the end, he finds fame and satisfaction.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Algonquin for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale today.

Much of the book is devoted to the relationship that Beep develops with a human child named Inga. While traveling through neighborhoods, a bit lost and unsure where the next forest might be, he spots her eating some delicious fruits in her backyard, so he introduces himself in order to get lunch. Inga’s mother comes out and meets him also, and this passage provides an idea of the story’s character:

“’Squirrel monkey,” the mother said warmly, ‘Ooooh. They aren’t usually solo. Oooh, ooh. Keep your eyes peeled, there will be more.’
“Ugh, eyes peeled? ‘I’d like some fruit,’ I said clearly.
“’Oh, how charming,’ said the mother. ‘Hoo-hoo, monkey.’ She’d wiped most of yesterday’s blood from her lips, but at the edges of the enormous mouth some remained (probably she’d caught and eaten a bird). Also, part of her outer wrappings had come loose and her poor chest looked more distended than ever, wrapped in a bright banner of some kind. Somemonkey once said they look like us, but come on: they do not.”

But this is not Inga’s permanent home; she is on vacation. When her family returns to New York, which Beep calls "Nyork", she smuggles him in with her carry-on items and it is in New York City that he meets fame after surviving several harrowing situations.

For the most part, I find this novel charming. There’s no need to concern ourselves about the credibility of the overall story line, because after all, we’ve begun with a monkey providing the narrative, so it’s clear that we just need to roll with it. It is funny in places, a bit dark in others, and then—as with the above quote—sometimes it’s darkly funny. Some of the reviews I’ve read take issue with the ending, but I’m good with it. My sole dissatisfaction, and unfortunately it’s one of my pet peeves, is Roorbach’s failure to develop Inga appropriately in keeping with her age. There’s a scene at the airport when she starts to cry because her stuffed animals are being taken away to be scanned by security, and another soon afterward where she is walking her doll buggy in Central Park, so I’m figuring she’s maybe six years old; but subsequent scenes make her seem much older, and finally we’re told that she’s eleven years old. It doesn’t take years of study to know that an eleven year old girl doesn’t wail about her stuffed animals or take her dolls for a walk in the park. Get real.

Happily, as the story unfolds from there, Inga settles into being a real eleven year old, and my irritability ebbs so that I can enjoy the rest of the book.

All told, this is a delightful read. Because of its dark characteristics, which I will not provide because they’d be spoilers, this is not a book to read to your little ones, but if you have a young Goth in your home who is able to read alternate spellings and dialects, then this book would likely be that kid’s happy place. The overall message is a worthy one, although Roorbach is probably not going to change hearts and minds about the environment, since those in favor of unchecked development in the face of environmental devastation and disaster aren’t going to buy this book. All told though, it’s a fine read for those that are ready for something a bit different and that can handle dark humor.

[Erin Rheenen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like BEEP. Its premise—a squirrel monkey from Costa Rica makes his way to Manhattan in the plushy carrier of an eleven-year-old girl—sounds like the set-up for a kid’s book. But the innovative language, the humor, and the underlying message of environmental catastrophe makes this more of an adult offering.

I got a lot of enjoyment out of this story. The book’s giddy whimsy and edge-of-seat adventure lightens the message of the radical changes needed in order to save the rainforest and the rest of the world. Told from Beep the Freemonkey’s point of view, the story decenters human experience and gives us a glimpse of how a monkey becomes a prophet—while finding true monkey love and forging relationships across species as well.

A novel doesn’t have to be strictly accurate as long as it’s emotionally true. But as someone who knows and loves Costa Rica’s wild animals and places, I appreciate that the author seems to know his monkeys and rainforests. He got so much right: squirrel monkeys live in the central and southern parts of Costa Rica’s west coast. The easiest place to see them is at Manuel Antonio National Park. They are the smallest of the four monkeys found in Costa Rica: (capuchin, howler, spider, and squirrel). Males weigh about 2 pounds, less than your standard bag of oranges, and females weigh around 1.5 pounds. They live in egalitarian troupes of 20 – 75 monkeys, with neither gender dominant – a perfect choice for a monkey who ushers in a new world order. Beep leaves his troupe to find a mate, which is possible but not probable: it’s more often the females who leave. Squirrel monkeys are very vocal, with a wide vocabulary, so to speak: scientists label some of their utterances as smooth chuck, bent mask chuck (no clue what this might mean), peep, and twitter. (You should see how the writers of bird guides translate bird calls!)

Beep can talk, of course, though only the Sensitives (humans with open minds) can understand him, not through words but through “moodling,” wordless communication born of empathy.

I loved following along as Beep moved through the world. Here a rush of language describes him rushing headlong through the trees: “I ran hand-and-foot down the longest branches and onward to branches interlaced, leaping any gaps, eye out for snakes, for cats on the ground, for bullet ants and scorpions, for poison frogs, for you-mens,(especially goers) [you-mens is how Beep writes humans; goers are humans in cars], swung arm-to-arm and flew across the gaps, brachiating it’s called, tail for balance, dropping, climbing, hands quick and fingers quicker for good things to eat: there’s a kind of grasshopper I like, and always termites, and here and there a blue lizard, which are slow and the best flavor. And in the pockets of branches sips of water, nothing wanting but rest.”

When Beep gets to New York City, accuracy suffers (go figure), but I didn’t mind venturing into the territory of myth, with the monkey adapting to the human world like a duck to a mud puddle. That the story involves most humans having to die in order to create a more sustainable world is just icing on the cake of this environmental fable. Kidding. Sortof.

Go, Beep!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*An ARC of this book was provided to me free for review through NetGalley on behalf of Algonquin Books*

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.

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beep
Bill Roorbach
Algonquin Books Of Chapel Hill
2024
Fiction/Animals/Humor



I was graciously sent a copy of Beep through Algonquin Books Of Chapel Hill in exchange for an honest review:



In this cheerfully, funny and energetic largely original novel told from the perspective of Beep, a squirrel monkey who—with the help of a brilliant young girl—forges the way forward for a planet in distress.


An adorable squirrel monkey named Beep teaches us how to see the world more clearly in this delightful and wise novel. His search for a mate in Costa Rica's rain forest turns into a delightful encounter with Inga, an intelligent tween on vacation with her parents.


Beep accidentally travels to Manhattan with Inga. With Inga’s devoted help and the inspiration of a visiting Greta Thunberg Beep manages to change the destiny of the world along with a dramatic zoo liberation. There is even a monkey love for him. Our alien cities, our strange practices, and our folly are revealed through a vast cast of engaging and perceptive animals.


I give Beep Four out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

[Susan Ballard (subakkabookstuff) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t resist stories told from an animal's POV. In BEEP, we meet Beep, a young squirrel monkey sent out to find his mate. He gets a little turned around and, instead, meets a human girl, Inga, who is on vacation. From there, Beep goes on a wild adventure.

The first half of the book had a more friendly, humorous feel. You have to adjust to Beep’s “monkey talk,” but it was about Inga and Beep trying to bridge the gap between the species and working together. In the second half, while more was happening, suddenly, strange things occurred, and even great harm occurred.

I struggled with some aspects of this story. I would have enjoyed if the premise had stayed focused on Beep and Inga’s friendship and their work toward saving the animals and the planet. But the “uprising" or cleansing did not feel right to me.

Overall, BEEP is an inventive story with a likable, funny, and furry main character. If you want a strong commentary on saving the planet and don’t mind it veering off the path a little, then you may enjoy this one.

Thank you @algonquinbooks for this gifted book.

[Tim Weed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suspect this novel will not be to everyone’s taste. A contemporary fable, it requires a suspension of disbelief on a number of levels above and beyond ordinary contemporary fiction. It’s unusual in contemporary fiction also of course, in that its protagonist is not human being. But for those willing to give something unorthodox a try, Beep is an unremitting pleasure. It's a literary adventure story, like some kind of crazy grown-up combination of Curious George, Watership Down, and Dr. Doolittle. As a piece of writing it’s a voice-driven tour-de-force—which is, if you think about it, quite an accomplishment for a story told by a monkey.

As we cope with the multi-pronged planetary crisis of our own making, it makes sense that we should spend more time in non-anthropocentric points of view. Beep’s is a doozy: wise, philosophical, and infused with a kind of philosophical deep-ecology outlook that is both refreshing and salutary. Oh, and did I mention that it’s also a lot of fun?

So if you’re up for a different kind of novel, I suggest that you abandon all cynicism, and all expectations of what fiction is supposed to do, and surrender yourself to the incredible, rollicking, big-hearted story of Beep, monkey.

[Jenntleh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beep by Bill Roorbach

I got this book for a reading challenge, as it fulfills climate reading in a digestible way for me. However, I’m currently reading two books with heavily accented or disjointed language, and this one was no exception. The writing is meant to immerse the reader in the thoughts of a monkey brain, which sometimes worked but often felt frustrating.

What felt unbelievable was how careful and aware of danger Beep was in the wild, yet when he moved to the "you-men" world, he adapted seamlessly. He quickly understood human concepts and basically became the top monkey. The language style had me skimming more than reading in spots—I didn’t feel like deciphering every unknown word.

I was also surprised that this book wasn’t more critical of climate change and human destruction. A large part of the story revolves around escaping the zoo, but in real life, this would likely lead to death for most animals rather than freedom.

In the end, it was a bearable read for the challenge, but the disjointed language and unrealistic elements made it frustrating at times.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an intriguing book!
The world is falling apart, death stalks all species and Beep the spider monkey leads escapees from the Bronx Zoo on a trek to his birth place in Costa Rica. He brings female Deeps with him. Their escape is part of a prophecy about the way the world recovers and they are aided by all sorts of creatures, including "sensitives" like human Ilsa and the monks.
Too hard to summarize right now since I'm rushing, but this is a book worth reading even if it's just to see if you can figure out what's being said.
Thought a lot about language, inter-species relationships and effects, hope (and fear) and love.
And climate change, inevitability, loss of habitat, mass death, possible recovery in new form.

[Amanda Rosselot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was … uncomfortable. It starts out with the spider monkey’s point of view as he is stolen from the jungle by a small girl and taken to New York. Since this book is being compared to Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, I wasn’t expecting such a horrific start to this book (sure, primates have been/are stolen away similarly in real life, but that doesn’t mean writing about it in a ‘cute’ point of view makes it sweet or endearing). Anyway, this part of the book is very detailed and drawn out over several chapters, which unfortunately caused me to quickly lose interest in the plot. The ending was sweet in it’s own way, but this sadly just wasn’t the book for me.

[Jeanne Baker Stinson]

I loved Beep's voice. (I haven't read other reviews -- imagine some were annoyed by his "accent" -- but not me -- just made him more adorable!) I loved his relationship with the little girl and the adventures he has in NYC. I loved the other animals and Roorbach's way of pointing out the horrors that humans have unleashed on the world. (Hard to love that but -- it was all in the context of relationship.) I was really loving the whole book until the very end. I couldn't see where it was going (which is usually a good thing) but ended up being unpleasantly surprised but the mystical and destructive ending. Hope for the planet but a whole lot of sorrow.

[TammyJo Eckhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a lighthearted story of a monkey who finds a girl and explores her world, but it is much more than that. It has dystopian and urban fantasy elements to it that were surprising and not always successful for me. I think if those elements had been introduced in the beginning, I may have bought into them more. I also was thrown at times by incongruous language that didn't mesh with the abilities that Beep had. I did feel like I needed to keep reading which is the most important part.

[Janalyn, the blind reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beep by Bill Rorbach is a book about a girl named Inga who takes home a squirrel monkey and the squirrel monkey narrates the story. I thought I would so absolutely love this book because it’s a talking animal… Right, I’m worthy human… Right? I love the line in the book that humans or just animals who forgot because to me that says so much and once again I am faced with a book that for the most part I really loved but the ending I think was a bit much. I feel bad for beep who just wanted to cross the great path but instead got taken with inga and her family back home. I thought the story would be that Beep would have a big adventure and eventually go home. Some of these things happened but there was so much more to the story not only is the story funny I love the way beep tried to communicate but it kept coming out is monkey. There’s a lot of LOL moments in the book with great writing and a pretty good story but in my opinion a not so great ending. I still gave it four stars because I was happy for him in the end. Please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

[Hannah Dosch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly this book lost me after Ch.20 with the telecommunication, the essentially murder spree, and the weird myth/legend Beep fulfills.

That being said I did like the commentary that the book touched on topics such as climate change, conservation, and the need for change. I also liked an animal perspective but at times I was confused at what Beep knows and why he knows it. However if I wanted to read a book about animal uprising I’d just go read Zoo.

[Rylie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF- I picked up this book knowing it was going to be written from Beep the squirrel monkeys perspective.. however.. the language and run on sentences were too obnoxious to put up with. In the first five pages, one of beeps sentences was EIGHT lines long without a period. It was exhausting to read. Will think twice about reading books written in this perspective. I really enjoyed “remarkable my bright creatures” and thought it was going to be similar, I was unfortunately wrong.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A departure from the Bill Roorbach books I have read and loved. At first it read like a kids book, the animal point of view, but maybe more. Then I thought maybe young adult. Then it took a turn that made me think epic adult fable, like Watership Down, Animal Farm. I just finished it, and now not sure it is any of those.
Just not sure. If I still worked in a library I don’t know who I would recommend it to, or why. Letting it sit in my head for awhile.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

don't ask me what this book is about i'm still processing that second half. I think I liked this book overall from how wild it was, but overall there was a message. And I'm not sure how that message was pulled off for the readers (at least for myself).

[Kate Belt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this fast paced novel by a favorite author. The writing was fun & clever, with lots of word play and spelling play. All of the words were coming from the mouths of non-human animal characters, or sounds as heard by the other animals.