"Water for Elephants" Book Review

When everything you have is taken away from you what do you do? This is what Jacob was thinking the moment he found out his parents were dead.

The setting of this book is in two places. One place is at a circus when Jacob is 23. The other is in a nursing home when Jacob is 93. I have never been to a circus but in this book the author made me feel like I was experiencing everything Jacob was. The vivid details the author used made the reader be with Jacob.

After Jacob finds out his parents are dead, he leaves college. He went to Cornell to be a veterinarian but left right before he was finished. When he left he jumped on a train and decided to go wherever the train took him. This train happened to be a circus train. Jacob now worked for a circus. When people found out he was pretty much a vet, they made him the circus vet. He found himself falling for Marlena. Marlena was one of the circus performers but she was also married to a man with anger issues. August, the animal trainer is Marlena's husband. Marlena performs with a bunch of horses. When her lead horse has to be put down, they buy her an elephant. Uncle Al, the circus owner, told Jacob the elephant was the best there was. But, for a while, she was the stupidest elephant Jacob had ever seen. After a while Jacob realized she was just different.

I really liked the author's style of writing. Even though most of the book is set in the 1930s, she makes the story easy to read.

I recommend this book for anyone that loves a great story that will captivate the reader. I could see that this book would be more of a girl book than a boy book, but there are plenty of qualities boys would like about this book too.

350 pages