Water For Elephants Book

Water For Elephants Book

This is a great, glorious, big-hearted novel set in a travelling circus touring the backblocks of America during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. It's a story of love and hate, trains and circuses, dwarves and fat ladies, horses and elephants - or to be more specific, one elephant, Rosie, star of Benzini Bros Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, swindlers and misfits in a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression.

A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that Jacob meets Marlena, the beautiful equestrienne who is married to August, a charismatic but violently unpredictable animal trainer. Jacob also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems unmanageable until he discovers an unusual way to reach her.

Water for Elephants is a story that has it all - warmth, humour, poignancy and passion. It has an energy and spirit like the feeling under a big top when the show is about to begin. It is a novel that will win your heart.

Review: Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants tells the story of Jacob Jankowski's eventful past. The story is told from Jacob's point of view, beginning with an old Jacob in a nursing home and then taking us back down memory lane into his exciting and hectic younger years.

After a tragedy strikes, leaving him alone and with nowhere to go, he leaves school, mid exam and goes off on his own. He finds himself on a train that turns out to be a travelling circus. Jacob is thrown into a whirlwind of excitement and chaos. After telling the owner of the circus that he had almost finished his veterinary studies, he is taken on as the circus vet.

Through Jacob's circus journey he meets some very unique characters including the beautiful Marlena and a very intelligent elephant named Rosie. The characters are described so well that we are given a vivid picture of what they would be like. Sara Gruen has done an amazing job of giving us an idea of what circus life was like for the workers and the animals, behind the scenes. It gives us a glimpse of the tough working and living conditions for all involved.

The setting of the story is in 1930's America during The Great Depression. After much research Sara Gruen has come up with a one of a kind story that also has some truth to it. There's so much more to this story than just being about a circus. It's a tale of finding out who you are, love, life, friendship, jealousy and everything in between. If you're looking for a unique and enjoyable read that you won't want to put down, then this one's for you.
-Sarah Masson

Sara Gruen is an award-winning technical writer and a transplanted Canadian who moved to the States in 1999 for a technical writing job. Two years later she got laid off, and instead of looking for another job, she decided to take a gamble on writing fiction full-time. Fortunately, the gamble paid off. She made her fiction debut in 2004 with Riding Lessons , followed by Flying Changes . Water for Elephants is her third novel, and she's currently working on her fourth. Sara lives with her husband, three children, two dogs, four cats, two goats, and a horse in an environmentalist community in North Illinois. Her dream is to spend her life facedown in the ocean, coming up just long enough to eat a piece of fish, write a chapter, and go back in the water.

Water For Elephants Book
Allen and Unwin
Author: Sara Gruen
ISBN: 9781741752953
Price: $23.98