Darwin Jihen

The Animal Liberation Alliance raids a laboratory and rescues a pregnant chimpanzee from experimentation. She later gives birth to Charlie, a “humanzee” who is half human and half chimpanzee. Fifteen years after being raised by human foster parents, Charlie enters an ordinary high school and tries to live among teenagers who have no familiar category for someone who is neither simply human nor simply animal.

Lucy becomes his first real friend, but the movement responsible for his rescue has changed into something far more extreme and wants to use Charlie as a symbol in its conflict with humanity. Surrounded by violence and arguments about animal rights, discrimination, and terrorism, Charlie is pushed toward a war in which everyone wants to define what he represents before giving him the chance to decide who he is for himself.