Book Review: Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is a book narrated by the memories of an old man in a nursing home flashing back to his life as a young vet on a travelling circus. Its based in the 1930s when the circus travelled by train into towns, to show off sideshow freaks and animal shows.

What can I say about this book, it just didn’t grab me really and was a bit of a disappointment. The way it was written was very plain English and didn’t hold my attention or amuse me with the words. The talk about the animals and circus life was interesting and well researched. But the love story just wasn’t believable – the beautiful starlet falling for the pimply red headed virgin boy – nope don’t buy it sorry! Another gripe I have is why are there so many covers printed?

I’ve heard the movie Water for Elephants is very good and I’ll be watching that next week with the Bookclub girls so I can compare the two.

I would recommend this book for animal lovers, young teens and the older generations as it has a mix from both sides of the story. I give this book 2 stars guess I'm off to watch Ramsey St re-runs!

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch re-runs of Neighbours than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up a pack of tim tams for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

[Image 1 The Book Depository, Image 2 here]