Water for Elephants

I just finished reading "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen this week, and I absolutely loved this book.

The story is told in two time frames; from Jacob Jankowski as a twenty-three year old vet traveling with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, and as a ninety-three year old man with a still-sharp mine confined to a nursing home. The story moves seamlessly between the two time periods. At the beginning of the story we are told he is about to reveal a secret he has kept hidden for seventy years----and what a story it turns out to be!

In 1931, a tragic accident takes Jacob's parents and leaves him alone and destitute in the midst of the Great Depression. The circus is both his salvation and his personal nightmare as he ends up signing on to be the circus veterinarian.

The characters in this novel are described so vividly that you will remember them long after you finish the story: Marlena, the pink-sequined star of the equestrian act; her charming-yet-terrifying husband August, who suffers with bouts of paranoid schizophrenia; Walter, the dwarf whose mother sold him to the circus; and Camel, the chain-smoking member of the circus who first befriended Jacob. And then there is Rosie, the lemonaid-stealing elephant that Jacob (and the readers) come to love.

This book was an easy read and had a very interesting plot. I also learned so much about the train-circus era in U.S. history. I think there is something in the novel for just about everyone: it includes pieces of many genres including; adventure, mystery, fictional memoir, love story, and historical account.

This was a great read, and I highly recommend it.