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87
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
83/100Critics
91/100Scholars
Author:
Laurie Zaleski
Publisher:
St. Martin's Press
Date:
February 22, 2022
Laurie Zaleski never aspired to run an animal rescue; that was her mother Annie's dream. But from girlhood, Laurie was determined to make the dream come true. Thirty years later as a successful businesswoman, she did it, buying a 15-acre farm deep in the Pinelands of South Jersey. She was planning to relocate Annie and her caravan of ragtag rescue-horses and goats, dogs and cats, chickens and pigsâwhen Annie died, just two weeks before moving day. In her heartbreak, Laurie resolved to make her mother's dream her own. In 2001, she established the Funny Farm Animal Rescue outside Mays Landing, New Jersey. Today, she carries on Annie's mission to save abused and neglected animals
What The Reviewers Say
As its title promises, Laurie Zaleski’s memoir about how she came to found and run a large animal rescue farm in southern New Jersey is funny. It’s also moving, a big-hearted twin narrative of animal and human resilience. Zaleski alternates the stories of some of the Funny Farm’s most colorful animal characters with her own family’s turbulent history and escape from domestic violence.
I was trying to explain the gist of Laurie Zaleski's memoir, Funny Farm, to my husband the other day, and as I spoke I realized that I was making it sound dire.
Readers will be inspired to visit virtually (or maybe even in person!) the animals they read about, like Emily the emu and Cowboy the goat. Zaleski’s animal stories are immensely relatable and often told with the mix of empathy, outrage, humor, and steady resolve that is familiar to seasoned animal rescuers. Readers may also feel a special connection with Annie and her story of courage and unconditional love..
The author expertly balances humor and vulnerability while sharing the details of her harrowing childhood, making the book feel like a conversation between friends. Although the interspersed anecdotes about the Funny Farm’s most famous rescued animals provide welcome moments of levity, they sometimes lack a connection to the main story. On the whole, however, the book, both heartwarming and heartbreaking, is an enjoyable read.
