Book Review: Water for Elephants

Author: Sara Gruen
Genre: Historical Fiction
Published: 2006, Algonquin Books
Rating: 2/5 Stars

Water for Elephants is set during the Great Depression. The story is told from the memories of the elderly Jacob Jankowski, who recalls his days of working for the traveling circus, the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Jacob is engulfed in the glamorous atmosphere of the circus, but not everything is as spectacular is it claims to be. He finds himself falling in love with a very off-limits woman and landing himself in some trouble.

Wow. Okay. I don't even know where to start. I didn't even know how to properly summarize this book because there's so much going on. I really, really wanted to like this. Honestly. But I didn't, I had so many problems with this book. I feel like I'm being a bit too generous giving it 2 stars.

This book made me feel like this.

It had so much potential. It really did. It just ended up falling flat. Gruen picked an interesting time period to write about, but it was severely lacking. I found myself forgetting that it was the 1930s until something obvious happened - like the raid in a Chicago night club. For me, it was impossible to become engrossed in the story.

The story itself was not was I was expecting; I thought this book was mainly a romance kind of historical fiction. It wasn't. The romance didn't start developing until at least halfway through the book. Even then, it didn't feel developed at all. It wasn't at all believable to me. There was no chemistry. It didn't help that Marlena was one of the most basic, flat, boring characters I've ever read. Zero personality.

Marlena.

The other characters were more interesting. However, I occasionally thought that Gruen used them to try to teach her readers how to behave toward other groups of people. It's a nice sentiment, don't get me wrong, but it caused the characters to feel less realistic.

My favorite part of the whole book was Rosie, the elephant.

The narration bugged me, the plot bugged me, the characters bugged me, and the ending bugged me. I don't feel like I can honestly recommend this book to anyone. I know that it's pretty popular and has high ratings, but it just wasn't for me. I would say if you're okay with being mislead by the blurbs and the summary on the back of the book, then go ahead and read it.