Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants: Over 84 Weeks on the NY Times Best Seller List

Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants was published in November 2006 and has since spent a staggering 84 weeks on the New York Times Top 20 Best Seller list. I bought this fascinating book as a random purchase one day at my local bookstore, and I greatly enjoyed reading it. In a nutshell, the story is about a young man who joins a circus during the American Depression.

A murder takes place in this book's prologue, but it only describes the act without giving away any names or motive. I think the author included this just to keep the reader interested, but it really wasn't necessary since the story is so well-written. Instead, I think the prologue actually spoils the ending of the book because the killing that does take place would have been much more shocking had you not seen it coming. The inclusion of this in the prologue was, in my opinion, and editorial oversight.

The main character in this story is a boy named Jacob who looked to be on his way to a successful career as a veterinarian. He's in college getting close to finishing his degree when a tragedy takes the lives of his parents. Their death leaves the family broke, with no way to pay for him to finish his degree or the second mortgage that his parents had taken out in order to pay for his college. Having lost literally everything that mattered to him, Jacob runs away from it all and soon ends up with a travelling circus group who lets him in because of his veterinary training.

The author, Sara Gruen, did a tremendous amount of research into the circus days of old, and it really shines through in her knowledgeable writing. She goes into a lot of detail about the inner workings of a circus family and how they prepare for the shows. There is a lot of animal abuse in the story, but unfortunately that's how things were back then. Having the story set during the Depression also helped to enhance the realism of the settings, and I very quickly found myself immersed in the story and characters.

Water for Elephants is as entertaining as it is educational, and I highly recommend this original and unique novel. You can't easily lump this story into one category, because it is part adventure, part love story, and part historical fiction. Either way you look at it, this is a great read.