Water for Elephants

Do you ever plan to do nothing but read on the weekend? Then this is the perfect book for you. Unfortunately, I did not start this on the weekend so I had a couple of way too late nights. I fell in love with Water for Elephants within the first few pages and had a lot of trouble putting it down. It is written in pretty simple language and the story really flows along.

The novel tells the story of Jacob, a young man on the verge of graduating from veterinary school. He plans to return home after graduation and join his father's practice. Several weeks before final exams Jacob learns that his parents were killed in an accident. He also learns that the practice and his family home were mortgaged in order to send him to school. Although Jacob does return to school and tries to prepare for finals, he just can't stay focused. He wanders off along the railroad track and on impulse jumps into an open boxcar. It turns out he has just landed on the train of a traveling circus.

Jacob joins the circus as the vet and is befriended by an animal handler named August who is a version of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde--kind and generous one minute, cruel and violent the next. Jacob falls in love with August's wife and does his best to hide it. But it wouldn't be a good story if Jacob's feeling didn't come out. And it wouldn't be a good circus novel without an elephant. Rosie is central to this story and she's an elephant that is dumber than a doornail (or is she?). I enjoyed the plot as well as the details about traveling circuses.

I give Water for Elephants 5 tickets to Ringling Brothers. All three of my pets give it nothing to protest the treatment of circus animals. I never should have let them read the PETA website.