Believe the hype you have heard about this book. Gruen's characters leap off the page and into your mind they are so well concieved. Almost every element you could want in a book is here - humor, a bit of a mystery, drama, angst, terror, compassion. It is about relationships; human to human; human and animal. It's about falling in love in an instant. It's about history. It's about life with a traveling circus and all the various personalities that make up a community.

The only word of caution I have is that there are elements of animal cruelty portrayed if that makes you squeemish.

A wonderful story of a young man's life turned upside down. A split-second decision lands him a job with a traveling cirus. The author does an amazingly thorough job, describing the intricacies of circus life in a realistic and gritty manor. The man's circus life story is told in flashbacks, with the majority taking place during the era of Prohibition, and is done with a great deal of love and affection.

With the story set in the circus world, I expected a huge menagerie of characters that would be difficult to keep track of. On the contrary, while there are several well fleshed-out characters, it's not overwhelming. The main character has quite a compelling story to tell, and he's easily likeable.

Highly recommended. A thoroughly enjoyable tale.

I almost didn't read this book because of the wait list (over 900 people!) and because my TBR pile is now a TBR mountain. I'm glad I did read it. Knocked it out in two nights. Memorable read.

Life was hard in the 1930's, there was no work, the stock market crashed. The romance and excitement of the traveling circus was the television of that time. Of course, the circus life itself was hard, gritty, and terrible. And always, underneath it all, one finds compassion.

This is a love story, between a man and a woman, between a man and himself.

OK, First I must tell you that I don't really like circuses - at least the old fashioned kind. That's primarily because I had always heard that they mistreated their animals. This book did nothing but reinforce that opinion.

Even given that though, this is a VERY good book. Well researched with fascinating insight into the life of a 3rd rate travelling circus in during the Depression. The story and the action never slows down until the dramatic and surprising conclusion. And even though many of the characters were, frankly, nasty, the goodness and morality of the main character and others gives you hope.

Highly recommended. 4.5* (It would have been 5* if I had been a circus fan.)

Great book! I really wasn't all into it at first because I was not interested in Depression-era circus life. But I am telling you, as little as this interests you, this book is great and it will MAKE you interested in circus life. It's told by the main character when he is near the end of his days in a nursing home which makes it interesting since he is telling a story of his past.

Brilliant is an understatement - wonderfully plotted, well paced, characters with depth (both human and non). You can taste the popcorn and smell the hay. You worry throughout the book that things will turn out badly, but you know they simply can't. There should be more than 5 stars available.

I really enjoyed this book. The character development is superb! The story line is very different. However, if you have difficulty imagining animals being mistreated, you may want to think twice. Some violence involving animals. It pushed me to the limit in this way, but the book was definitely worth it.

A really great read! Sucks you right in and you won't put it down. This is not YA, and there are refs to sex in it (nothing terribly explicit), but it is a reasonable read for a mature teenager. My 15-year old niece adored this book--she carried it everywhere with her (up the stairs, in the car) until she finished it, and said it was one of the best books she ever read.

It is fun and fascinating and a terrifically absorbing and satisfying book.

I picked this up after it was recommended to me. From the prologue to the very end, it had me captivated. I also liked it because it gave me a glimpse into the 1930's, a decade I don't know too much about.

This book provided something very different from anything else I've ever read, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I felt drawn into the time period and a lifestyle that I've never imagined. Very well written. For me the love story aspect took a back seat to the other relationships Jacob developed during his early days with the Circus, both with humans and animals.

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I thought the book was too simple. I enjoyed the conjuring up of depression area times. The interest in the guy lying behind the tent rolls can keep my interest for only so long. I'm sure some will love this book and to them i say, "happy reading!"

Enjoyed this book very much!

Great story. A page-turner with sympathetic characters all around, even the villains. i enjoyed the framework of using the old-man-looking-back device in some ways, but i never quite "bought" him as a real person. he as a young man back in the circus days seemed believable, as did all the circus characters. a good read, especially if you've ever been to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, which I visited a year before reading this. The animals are the true protagonists so animal lovers may both cringe and smile.

Great ending,great story

The nuanced feelings that you get on being old and trying to persevere is captivating and heart warming. We should all get on the train of life and take a ride.

I wish I could say that I really enjoyed this book the way I enjoyed "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, which was the last really great book I read, but I can't. There were some wonderfully descriptive scenes of circus life and well-researched background on the history of the traveling circus in America, but I wasn't able to identify with any of the characters.

Very good book.

Loved this book!!!! I hated to see it end! The writing was so good! I was completly into it every day.

Story Overview

Jacob Jankowski is 90—or possibly 93. He's not really sure.

"When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm—you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it."

Jacob lives in a nursing home—a bit of a grumpy old man but he does OK overall. He likes to give the nurses a hard time every so often. He resents having to eat Jell-O and the other soft food they try to pass off in the dining room. But his mind is drifting a bit; sometimes he finds himself in vivid dreams—and wakes to find himself unsure of where he is and why he is there. And when a circus sets up shop near the nursing home, Jacob's mind begins to wander more—back to when he was a young man of twenty-three. Back when he knew exactly how old he was. Back when his life lay before him like a blank canvas.

He was studying to be a veterinarian. Unbeknownst to Jacob, his parents had mortgaged themselves to the hilt to put him through vet school. The idea was for Jacob to return home and join his father in the family practice—E. Janokowski and Son, Doctors of Veterinary Medicine. But on the brink of graduation, Jacob is called out of class. His parents have been killed in a car accident. He's alone in the world. He returns home to bury his parents and finds that his legacy—the vet practice—is gone. It is the Great Depression and like others, his parents had fallen on hard times and there is nothing left—the bank claims it all.

Although Jacob returns to school to sit for his final exam, he walks out without completing it, follows a road down to the train tracks, and hops onto a passing train—a n action that changes everything. For this isn't an ordinary train—it is the Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Jacob has landed on a circus train.

A less profitable and more shady circus than Ringling, the Benzini Brothers circus is its own society—populated by two basic social castes: the Performers and the Working Men. They live their lives on the circus train—crisscrossing the country and setting up in various small towns around America. With his veterinary background, Jacob soon finds himself in charge of the menagerie—the collection of animals that perform in the circus. From horses to tigers to monkeys, Jacob cares for the animals with compassion and concern—doing the best he can in difficult circumstances. (After all, when even the men don't get paid some days, there isn't much money for animal food.)

He is befriended by a married couple who perform in the circus. Marlena is the beautiful star who performs with the Liberty Horses. August—Marlena's tempermental husband—is the equestrian director and superintendent of animals (in other words, Jacob's boss). Jacob is instantly smitten with Marlena but works hard to conceal his feelings—August has a dark temper that can flare unexpectedly. At first Jacob can control his attraction, but when the circus takes on Rosie—an elephant—things become complicated.

The fates of Jacob, Rosie, Marlena and August become forever intertwined—linked together by love, hate, jealousy and violence. How this story plays out forms the core of the book—taking a path that is full of twists, turns and surprises.

My Thoughts

Sara Gruen does a brilliant job of creating a world that I've never read about before—the world of a traveling circus train in Depression-era America. What a colorful and fascinating setting this was. Gruen does a wonderful job of giving you the feel for a life of a circus worker, and the story is enhanced by the black-and-white photos of actual circus performers from the era. You feel like you're looking at photos of the actual characters that populate the book. In the Author's Note and the accompanying interview, Ms. Gruen talks about her inspiration and research for the book. There are a million little details that give this book such an authentic feel. She really did her homework and it shows. From the words used by the characters to the descriptions of the logistics of the circus to the types of men and women who made their home in what was essentially a traveling, self-contained community, I felt like I was really there on the circus train.

Although the heart of the book is what happens to Jacob when he joins the circus, the book alternates between the elderly Jacob in the nursing home and young Jacob in the circus. I thought this juxtasposition worked well (except for the very end—I personally didn't care for the final choice that Gruen made for the elderly Jacob). When the circus comes to town and triggers Jacob's memories, his story unfolds in a natural way—with the reader getting more and more drawn in to Jacob's story as it unfolds in the book and in his memories.

In addition, Gruen establishes a framing device in the prologue that influences the reader from the very start of the novel. I found this particular choice extremely effective—and I loved how she pulled it off and tied it together at the end. I love when an author plays with her readers a little bit, and Gruen did a great job in this aspect.

If you're looking for a movie to go with the book, I must recommend Dumbo. I kept picturing scenes from that movie as I read the book, and I could completely imagine this story being told in a similar way.

My Final Recommendation

I definitely see why this book was a bestseller. It offers something for everyone—a unique setting, a bit of history, a romantic triangle, animals, an examination in what it means to grow old. This book effortlessly fits all of this in without seeming forced or strained. And on top of that, it is just a good story that makes you want to find out what happens next. If you haven't read it already, I think it is definitely worth a read. If I was attending the Benzini Brothers circus, I would be standing up and yelling "Encore! Encore!"

"Water for Elephants" is a touching, heart-felt story of love, drama, and growing old. It is a great read, hard to put down. I'm keeping this one in my home library!

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