Year in (Book) Review: Water for Elephants

This one is so long overdue I can barely remember what I wanted to say, let alone how to make it eloquent and articulate. I read Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants mostly because one of my most trusted recommenders said I should, and also a little because Ms. Gruen was kind enough to write a blurb for my mentor’s latest book, because my mentor was brave enough to simply reach out and ask her. I’m all for continuing the cycle of good author karma.

The long and short of it: if you haven’t already, go read this book. Right now. Go. Now. Seriously, now, since the movie trailer is beginning to circulate (the film comes out in the spring) and I am a huge proponent of book first, movie second. Even in the best    book-to-film adaptations, you lose the details that give a story its life, and you lose the ability to let the characters form their own shape and appearance in the expanses of your imagination.

All that being said, it’s a charming, lovely tale about two of my favorite things – people in love and lovable animals. That’s a lot of love going on there in that sentence. Told in memory and flashback from Gruen’s now-senior narrator, we are taken along during a very life-altering turn of events in his young life. We meet the people, and the creatures, he meets, we feel the sadness and the hope and the lust he feels, and we believe in the happy endings he dares to believe in. It’s got all kinds of exciting, sometimes downright tense things going on, and while it’s a quick read, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable one. And at its core it’s a book about second chances and following your heart. It’s a hopeful book. I can't imagine anything nicer to say about a book, really.