MENAGERIE by Rachel Vincent is book number one in her new series Menagerie. This book is very different from her wonderful Shifter series and also from her Soul Screamers series. But Menagerie is truly dark, gritty, and profoundly disturbing. The first half of the book is difficult for me to read, and many times I wanted to put the book down and simply walk away. I appreciate the underlying book message that every living thing should be treated with respect and kindness (even things you don't think deserve it). The first half of this book is so graphic in the mistreatment of creatures that it makes me feel squicky. I don't know if Vincent intends to make her message so perturbing that one cannot ignore it. If so, she has done an excellent job with that.

Vincent demonstrates amazing worldbuilding skills, showing us the world where Cryptids live penned up by humans. Cryptids are fae, mythological creatures, shapeshifters, and other paranormal near-humans. They coexisted peacefully with humans until The Reaping twenty five years ago. Then in just one day, one million children were inexplicably killed by their own parents, who creepily have no memory of the murders they committed. Without an explanation for the murders, the massacre of the children is blamed on mental manipulation by the Cryptids (it's always easy to pin the blame of 'foreigners,' right?). All Cryptids, human-appearing or not, were stripped of all their rights and treated worse than animals. They were taken to be used as lab rats or game preserves to be hunted. And they were captured to be displayed in circuses, treated even worse than the atrocities that are committed upon the elephants, tigers, and orcas that we keep in captivity today in our own world.

On Delilah's 25th birthday, her boyfriend takes her to see Metzger's Menagerie, "The Largest Traveling Zoo in the Northern Hemisphere." There, Delilah witnesses the mistreatment of a shapeshifter child which triggers her righteous rage and causes her to display the Cryptid characteristics Delilah is unaware she possesses. Bewildered, Delilah is immediately captured and stripped of all her rights, even her name! She is sold to Metzger's Menagerie, where she is degraded and tortured. The abuse heaped upon her and the other captured Cryptids is horrifically laid out in detail by Vincent. It is clear to the reader that the real beasts are the humans who are on the outside of the cage bars. The second half of the book is not as dark, and sets up things beautifully for the continuation of the series. By the last 25-percent, I really enjoy what the story develops into. The last few chapters are very hopeful, but the journey to get to that hope is fairly painful to me.

I'm torn as to whether I can recommend this book. Personally, if I had known ahead of time what this book is like, I don't think I would have read it. While I donate generously to animal rights causes, I can't tolerate seeing the images of abused animals that some sites like PETA or ASPCA show. I know the abuse is out there happening every day, but I don't want to experience it in all its graphicness. However, Vincent's MENAGERIE is utterly thought-provoking, and if you like your horror/fantasy books to make you really think about ethical and moral issues, then this is the book for you.