Ape House - Sara Gruen

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets--especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and "liberating" the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show, Ape House, featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest--and unlikeliest--phenomenon in the history of modern media.

Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.