Read This!: Water for Elephants

By Sara Gruen

For the past few years I have seen many people reading Water for Elephants on the train. Because of this, I have picked it up and read the back more than once and always had the same reaction. “A book about the circus? Eh.” So with the movie just recently out, I have seen a renewed interest in this book. Everyone I saw told me how fantastic it was. Even Mr. said he might want to read it. So, I was thinking I might give it a go when lo and behold Mr. brought me a copy as a present (for me or him?).

I went into this book with high hopes.

The gist of the story is that Jacob, the main character, is in his 90s in a nursing home reflecting on his early adulthood and time as a vet in the circus where he met and fell in love with Marlena, one of the circus performers and wife to a not-so-nice head circus guy.

I was disappointed. I thought the end would be more exciting based on the intro but it was just blah. I was also bored by all of the circus talk and I expected the romance portion to begin a lot sooner than it did. Mostly, I just felt bad for all the animals in the book. The human characters were not that engaging.

It was an OK read but I definitely think my expectations going in really influenced my ultimate disappointment. The wow factor was pretty low IMO.

Did anyone else out there feel the same way as me?