Book Review: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Jacob Jankowski doesn't know how old he is today, but he knows how old he was during that fateful summer that his parents were killed; the summer that he dropped out of Cornell; the summer that he joined the circus.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is Jacob's depression-era story of heartache and redemption; love and murder; friends and enemies. As the veterinarian on a railcar circus, Jacob sees it all - beatings, sex, mental illness, freaks, hoboes and more. He falls in love with an elephant, protects a sick friend and attempts to save another from her dangerous husband, all while sharing a train car with horses and a midget.

Reviews for Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants comes from many, many people with rave reviews. It has more than 1,660 five-star reviews on Amazon.com and has been made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and James Pattinson. Yet, the book leaves much to be desired.

In fact, it's not good at all.

Granted, Gruen's novel does have some redeeming qualities. The setting is interesting and attention grabbing. She sets the story up well with the drama surrounding Jacob's situation and she creates some funny and captivating situations.

Shortcomings of Water for Elephants

But then Gruen simply does not deliver. The characters are flat and relatively static, the dialogue is terrible and does not math the time period, and the writing and descriptions are forced. With descriptions such as "I wake with a start. I've scratched my arms and neck raw. I don't know if it's from sleeping on horsehair or vermin and don't want to know," "the polar bear lies on his stomach, head and snout stretched out in front of him," and "the orangutan lies flat on her back, arms and legs spread out," Gruen tells the reader rather than showing the reader.

Because of the forced descriptions, and despite the use of a first-person narrative, it's difficult to identify with and feel anything for Jacob, or any other character for that matter. There simply is not emotional connection.

Gruen's Research

When the reader reaches the end of the novel and reads the interview with Gruen, she discovers that even the few interesting situations in the story are not a product of Gruen's imagination, but rather real-life anecdotes that she strung together throughout the work. There certainly is something to be said for inspiration, but it's disappointing that the only good parts of this novel were simply lifted from history and strung together in a less-than stellar manner.

Through in a bunch of cuss words, some animal cruelty and a few awkward sex scenes, and Gruen has taken a vibrant novel with an interesting set up and turned it into an absolute bore. I was more than 100 pages into this book, considering if it was worth finishing and wondering when the real story was going to start and when the novel was going to live up to the hype. It never did.

Generally, I'm of the belief that the book is always better than the movie. This time, however, I hope I'm proven wrong. The movie is due out April 22, 2011.

Water for Elephants was published by Algonquin Books in 2006. ISBN: 9781565125605

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