Beatrice And Virgil

Yann Martel wrote Beatrice and Virgil as well as The Life of Pi.  I really enjoyed The Life of Pi, a far fetched and amusing story about a boy lost in the ocean on a life raft with wild, predatory animals.  He lived to tell the tale.  This story also had animals in it, this time a howler monkey (Virgil) and a donkey named Beatrice. The story  is cute in the beginning.  Beatrice and Virgil are friends and they look out for each other.  There is a detailed and interesting description of a pear, a taxidermy shop named Okapi Taxidermy, and a young married man named Henry.  The story gets strange in the middle and the last two chapters are surprising but not in a good way, at least for me.  Don't read this book if you are faint hearted.