Water for Elephants in Review

Since I have finally mastered the art of reading in the car, this was one of two books I dove into on vacation as my gracious hubby drove many hours..
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is a book I started several times before and just never got into despite it's rave reviews and a movie with some big name stars that's beginning to buzz. I applied my 100 page rule this time because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Once I did that, I began to really like it. It's historical (the author spent a lot of time researching the circus in this era) , non-gagging romance, and interesting. I loved the detail in the story, the talented author really paints a picture with her words and leaves just the right amount of suspense in her tale.
I would not call it a "feel good" book or a "beach read". There is some challenging content at times, but it's fitting with the story. I especially loved the ending. You will likely figure it out, and be relieved and delighted at the same time.

Also, watch in the book for how the main character Jacob Jankowki's life shows some parallels to the Biblical Jacob.

Here's the plot summary from Publishers Weekly:
The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures. He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show's star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena's husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story's ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.