"Journey of the Pink Dolphins"

The novel “The Journey of the Pink Dolphins”, written by Sy Montgomery, is entrancing story for many reasons, but the two that are most prominent are the story, and the style. For a lot of people, narrative, the story, plays a huge part in liking a book. If the plot is like a history or science book, the reader will undoubtedly fall asleep from boredom, or let the book lie on their shelf for years on end. However, this was not at all the problem for Journey because the book was so well written.
Journey of the Pink Dolphins is a semi-autobiography of Montgomery, but is mostly an account of her journey through the Amazon on her quest to follow the Pink Dolphins. A lot of the time an author might want to add anecdotes about how she, or he, felt about something, but this was not present. This enhances the book because it does not become dry and caught up in the anecdotes, allowing the story to unravel much more easily. Montgomery also had the ability to transport her audience to the Amazon, and with all the wildlife being so obscure that is a feat in of itself! However, Montgomery is a scientist, and being a scientist, she liked to add a lot of little extra facts. To be frank, a lot of extra facts. When she would be talking about the rainforest, she might go on for a page or more of just statistics. Don’t get me wrong, I like learning about the rainforest, but describe it with letters, not numbers. It is much more enjoyable that way. In fact in some parts, the beginning in particular, I could just imagine a blonde and a brunette, with their Peruvian guide in the back of their aluminum boat, powered by a 40 horsepower engine, floating through the water at dawn; the best time to see the Botos (pink dolphins).
Journey was not only stylistically pleasing but it also had an interesting story too. I love reading about exotic places, and I love reading about animals, so naturally this book was an instant fit. It was so incredible how much trouble she had, just finding the dolphins, simply because not very much is known about them, and so she had very little to go on to even find them. Montgomery had an adventure every time she walked outside her mosquito net in the morning, and it was hilarious and sometimes unbelievable, to imagine what she was going through! But at times this also made it hard for you to truly understand what kind of situation she was enduring; creating a distance from reader to author that was irritating at times. Overall, though, the book was very entertaining, I would recommend that nature enthusiasts read this book, though everyone can enjoy this unique book.