I really enjoyed Half Brother by Ken Oppel. I did not expect too because I was afraid the premise of a family "adopting" a chimpanzee was going to be sappy and trite. (For the record I had never read a book by Oppel before.) Instead the book addressed issues of animal cruelty and experimentation, the definition of "family" and "brother," all the while exploring the maturation of Ben alongside that of his "brother" Zan. There were certainly sappy moments, but they were true moments of affection between Ben and Zan as well as with Ben and his mother, and Ben and Peter, a student who comes to the house to help care for Zan, who Ben also adopts as a brother of sorts. I am not sure how to categorize this novel, there was some romance, but it was certainly not a romance, nor is it science fiction as the concept of teaching chimps to communicate through sign language is commonly accepted, and it also avoids some of the stereotypical teen angst. Yet again it is a middle years or YA novel that shows a young person grappling with his role in the world, it just so happens that in this case he occasionally tries to use chimp-like behaviors to become popular, assert his strength, and get the girl.