I do not endorse this.

Best seller lists have fooled me in the past. Lovely Bones, Bluest Eye, the other book about black slaves in the south. It’s always a gamble.

I finished Water for Elephants. On a sale of 1-10 (10 being the best) I give the book a Three Minus. Three because the author obviously did a LOT of research to even be able to write the book, and took the care in include unbelievably true circus stories. Minus because it sucked. It just wasn’t written well. At all. The author is a former tech writer, and it showed.

At the end of the book, there is an interview with the author. She mentioned that she felt she had great structural skills from her tech writing days and thus did not make an outline. A novel that is first person written sequentially in dreams with moments of “present” awake time is, really, not impressive, lady. Read Waterland and tell me how that structure makes you feel. Had I been the editor for this novel, I would have told her to scrap the “dream” idea and have the story start with the old man at the circus, telling the Manager the story. Maybe occasionally flashing back to the present to deal with “old man problems.” It would have seemed more thrilling, being able to both give reactions of the old man telling parts of stories he may have never repeated before, and also a reaction to that information. Stating that something is a really big deal is just not exciting.

Also noted in the interview was how the author did such a great job handling old people. Which is a pretty small accomplishment considering 80% of the novel the “old man” was in his 20s. She added true circus stories, which was cute. It also seemed a little plager-y considering this was a work of fiction. Had she written a non-fiction book, it might have been better. It is also considered “historical” fiction because it was set in the 1920s circus life. Which makes the whole US in the 20s much less interesting because, through prohibition was going on, everyone on the train drank without a problem. All. The. Time. Once, the train was raided. People cried. And then they drank something else. OMG IT WAS HORRIBLE

In general, the book was unable to emphasis any sort of dramatic information. It read as if a junior high schooler had written it for a class assignment. This happened, then this happened, then THIS happened and it was a REALLY big deal, afterward this happened. The only point of drama that seemed fairly adequate was when the parents died. The rest of the novel, as a whole, seemed as if it was written by an observer, which would be fine, had it not been first person. When your narrator is automatically limited in perspective by being first person, it’s even more challenging to cripple them with the inability to describe their own details.

What really grinds my gears though, is that the author specifically thanks someone for helping her title the book "Water for Elephants" which, while I do agree is a good title, has little to nothing to do with the actual story. Old man says he worked in the circus carrying water for elephants. Narrator old man gets mad, calls old man a liar, pouts for another 50% of the story. Aside from saying that elephants require a lot of water, the idea that carrying water for elephants is worth getting up in arms about is never defined. Perhaps it is an insider circus thing. Also, no elephants in the book ever drank any water. I'm serious. Lemonade, yes. Water, no. The title is seriously downgraded considering no elephant ever drinks any water, and watering elephants isn't entirely mentioned in the circus part of the story. It would like if I named a novel "I love Nutella" and though I argue, once, that nutella is good,I never actually eat any.

I would be unlikely to read a book by her again.