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Both stories belong to Jacob Jankowski, a man whose aging body betrays his still-kicking and gypsy spirit, who fondly reminisces his wild circus days as a younger man.

Water For Elephants

Originally Published: 2006

Pages: 352

Available on: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook

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Published in 2006 by bestselling author, Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants awakens and celebrates the runaway in all of us. A drama and romance, this work of fiction is a fantastical story that includes all of the fun circus elements that you could ask for: trapeze artists and lion tamers, boxcar jumping, sneaking around Prohibition laws, maniacal-yet-genius circus managers, endearing performing elephants that are secretly the real heroes, and a forbidden love. Water for Elephants is a true circus show that ropes readers in for a feel-good, emotion-gripping journey.

The novel alternates between past and present, for Jacob is 93 in body, not in mind. He’s the crotchety old man at the end of the visiting home hallway that protests wholeheartedly that he can do everything himself—dagnabbit!—but does forget his nurse’s name more times than he cares to admit. He is pulled back in time throughout the novel, effortlessly slipping back into the happiest days of his life when he joined the circus.

Jacob had been a steadfast, career-oriented veterinary student in his last semester at Cornell University when he received news of the tragic deaths of his beloved parents. Reeling from this loss and completely broke, he quite literally runs away from his final exam and the life that he knew, and jumps straight onto the first train he comes across.

And that train? Just had to be a traveling circus, of course.

Jacob enters a world that he had never imagined: the world of The Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Circus “freaks” and performers quintessential to a 1930s traveling circus show included a fat lady, trapeze artists, zoo animals, and a dwarf—you name it, The Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth had it. The setting is 1932, in the heart of the Depression, when humor and a steady income were hard to come by in America. That is in part why traveling circuses did so well at the time; their fresh novelty and entertainment were a welcome distraction to hard-up folks.

Submerging himself in this underworld of freaks, rejects, and drifters, Jacob embraces his new persona as the circus veterinarian, quickly and naturally. He earns the respect of everyone around him with his expertise with animals and medicine and his dedication to honor his own moral compass that no one can knock astray, despite many wayward opportunities. There are lighthearted and comical moments where the young man grows up quickly and embarrassingly, and there are dark turns where more sinister motives endanger Jacob and his friends. 

More importantly, Water for Elephants is a subtle and charming love story. Young Jacob falls in love at first sight. Slight problem: Marlena is married, and she is married to the resident psycho. How (and if) they overcome this will be yours for the discovery when you pick up the novel, but their love story is complicated and dangerous, to say the least.

Water for Elephants is full of small, beautiful moments and stolen scenes that capture a reader’s heart and attention, full of characters that every fantastical adventure story should have, and full of magic, love, and even evil. One cannot forget the novel’s namesake either, a lovable elephant named Rosie, who turns out to be nobody’s fool.

With tactful humor and terrific story telling, Sara Gruen delivers a sensational novel that is not based on a specific true story, but does include elements of true circus circumstances typical to the Depression era. Gruen researched past circus shows, got in touch with under-the-radar performers, and used many references that add unique anecdotes throughout the story.

Water for Elephants has won several awards and was made into a film adaption in 2011, featuring Robert Pattison and Reese Witherspoon. Sara Gruen herself is a New York Times bestselling author of five books, but put another project on immediate hold when suddenly inspired to write this novel about a circus instead. Any reader with a taste for humor, adventure, and a secret desire to run away will adore this quixotic book.