Review: Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen spent months researching circuses that traveled by trains and they paid off in the realistic Water for Elephants that she turned into fiction. The novel begins with main character Jacob Jankowski, a 93-year-old man in a nursing home, when the circus comes to town. This begins his flashback of his time with the Benzini Brother's Most Spectacular Show on Earth in the summer of 1931.While it focuses on the cirucs, the novel weaves back and forth between a 23-year-old Jacob on the circus and present-day Jacob with his nursing home struggles.

Jacob had never intended to end up on the circus, but once he does he is caught in a whirlwind of romance and drama. He has to learn the ropes of a struggling circus that can't always afford to pay its employees. Each character has his/her own unique qualities that make each seem as real and relatable as the next. Even the circus's animals take on personalities that make them seem real.

After the great reviews I wanted to give it a shot and I had trouble putting it down. The novel has a little something for every kind of reader as it falls into multiple genres of mystery, romance and adventure. Gruen continuously surprised me through the last page. Each page was as compelling as the next. I would absolutely recommend this novel to everyone.

Buy Water for Elephants: A Novel  on Amazon

Reading through my bookshelf

I'm that person who buys too many books at a time or asks for too many for a holiday. I guess over the years I've become more of a collector than a reader with bookshelves filled with unread books, though many have been read. I was inspired recently to look through those shelves and pick out the novels that I still wanted to read but hadn't. I found over 50 books that I had left unread over the years and still have an interest in reading.

Those books range from classic literature like Jane Austin's Persuasion to current novels like David Sedaris's Naked. They include novels I wanted to read when I was younger and never did like Gossip Girl and A Wrinkle in Time. I have so many books at home to read that there's no reason to check books out from a library or buy/ask for new ones until I've finished this lovely collection of books that I already have. So this just turned into a book blog with a twist; reading and reviewing books from my own shelves.

I'm starting with Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants.

Review: Sideways

Sideways by Rex Pickett chronicles a week-long vacation of two friends, Miles and Jack, filled with wine tastings, adventure, and women. Jack is getting married at the end of the week and wants to have one last hurrah with his best friend and best man Miles.

Miles is the narrator of the novel, a recently divorced aspiring writer. He is a unique character damaged by the divorce and the many rejections from publishers. He has his extreme ups and downs throughout the novel.

Pickett is very knowledgeable about wine and the novel focuses on that knowledge with the detailed descriptions and expertise of each tasting.

As a 20-year-old, I wasn't the target audience for this novel. As I read I was occasionally bored by the wine descriptions and the antics of older men, but I enjoyed the novel nonetheless. It was funny and exciting and at times even a little bit suspenseful. The relationships are interesting and the dialogue honest.

I have read that the movie that was made from this novel is better than novel itself. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the chemistry between the actors supposedly adds more to the movie than Pickett can put on paper.

Buy Sideways on Amazon