"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

It's been a strange year. Books I didn't think I would like, I loved, and books I thought I would love, I sort-of liked. Guess which one this was? "Water for Elephants" is a New York Times Bestseller, so hugely popular it was turned into a Hollywood film (coming to a location near you!) It has a lot going for it. The tale is unique and fresh, told extremely well and the world explored is one completely foreign to most of us. I especially enjoyed the back and forth between "then" and "now." Ms. Gruen has an arch, sarcastic sense of humor that made me giggle in several inappropriate places. She seems to have a knack at writing characters she should know nothing about. I kept checking her biography in the back of the book to figure out how a young woman like her could write such a decidedly male-perspective tale, not to mention get into the head of an aging member of a senior citizen's home. In many ways, I thought this was a great novel. And yet. Set in depression-era 1930s, the detail of the story was completely on-point. So much so, that it felt a little like a 1920s era melodrama. The lead character, Jacob, his nurse, Rosemary and his sullen roommate, Walter, all seemed fairly fleshed out. So does the elephant, Rosie. But the object of his affection, Marlena, seemed to be a cardboard cutout. The same applied to her vicious husband, who was only one step away from twirling a mustache. For me, there were too many moments where I felt she was crying "I can't pay the rent" and he shouted back "You must pay the rent!" For this reason, one of the central plot points, the epic love story, just fell flat. It's like my complaint with bad productions of "Othello." You have to buy into the love story for everything else to work. The trappings of the book were fascinating, but the weakness of this element made the whole thing less engaging for me. The story is also brutal (but probably accurate) in the treatment of animals (including those of the human variety). Let's face it, I'm a wuss. Go into detail about some furry thing getting beat, and I just can't take it. The overall tone is incredibly dark, and, near the end, tremendously sad. The actual ending is kind of sweet, but in a "Schindler's List" way -- coming out of the dark to an okay moment. It's a good book, and easy to see why it has received the accolades it has. But not really my cup of tea.