Life of Pi is a fantastic read - despite its initially daunting subject matter!

This review was highly commended in the writelink reviewing the situation contest in July 2007.

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Life of Pi by Yann Martel, £7.99, paperback, pp384, Canongate Books Ltd.

At first glance, the story of a boy adrift on the ocean with a menagerie of zoo animals didn't sound like my kind of novel. Yet it had won the Man Booker Prize 2002 and they don't give that away to any old book, do they?

In fact, almost as soon as I started reading, I was hooked. The novel is Canadian Yann Martel's second and tells the story of zoo-owner's son Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi). He is emigrating from India to Canada with his family and their zoo animals when their boat hits disaster in the middle of the Pacific. Pi is stranded in a lifeboat with a hyena, orangutan, zebra and a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. But who will survive?

This gripping and beautifully written, allegorical piece of literary fiction is actually about far more than just Pi's life and it doesn't take long for one to realise exactly why it won the Man Booker. The twist at the end comes literally out of the blue, given that the story's mostly set on the ocean. But it is entirely, mind-numbingly scarily, credible, producing both an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.