Friday

Book Review: Water for Elephants


This is an EXCELLENTLY written book... that I didn't enjoy very much. Sadly.
Story is flash-backs: starts with a 93-year-old guy in an assisted living facility (he can't ever remember if he's 90 or 93...) and the circus is coming to town. Many of the residents are excited to go, and the excitement takes him back to the summer of 1931 when he worked on a circus.
As I said, excellently written in such a manner that I loved the lovable characters and hated the not-so-lovable. I didn't realize until I read the prologue that many of the situations included in the book are from Sara Gruen's research on the history of circus' that traveled by train. I think what I didn't enjoy was how true-to-life much of it was. From Amazon.com:
"Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused."
And it descends from there. All in all, I wouldn't say that it was a waste of time, but it was definitely a dark look at what likely really happened with a traveling circus.

4 comments:

jerriann said...

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement you left me. You made my day. And you gave me constructive advice that I will put to action. Thank you again.

I never thought about giving a book review for a book that I didn't really like. Great idea to talk about it anyway.

katie and matt said...

I completely agree with your review! I read this book about a year ago- extremely intriguing and well-written, but leaves you sad!!

AbbieCRAZY said...

I loved this book! But I love to read about new stuff.....

Bob said...

See? That's why I shy away from book reviews. But I still respect you!