Book Review: "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

This is one that Hollywood might actually get right.

From what I can tell from the previews, the casting is pretty well done. I’m not a Twihard by any stretch of the imagination (have yet to pick up a book in that series), and I don’t understand the fascination surrounding Robert Pattinson, but he is an absolute perfect choice for the role of Jacob Jankowski in Water for Elephants.

And if you would have asked me yesterday, I would have said Reese Witherspoon would do a great job as the lead female role, but that was before I saw her latest flick, How Do You Know. (Save yourself two hours. It was awful! I forced my husband to watch it, and after about an hour in, I was the one who turned it off). Either way, though, Emily Blunt would have been far better choice to play Marlena, the female lead. I realize I’m about five years behind the Emily Blunt craze, but she is absolutely amazing in anything she does, and this would have been no exception.

But I’m way off track here. If this were a movie review blog, it would merely be a series of posts of me whining about movies that simply wasted a good Saturday evening - especially when they mess with perfectly good books. But it’s not. This space is reserved for books.

And this happens to be one I loved.

I devoured Sara Gruen’s debut novel, Water for Elephants while on bed rest during my twin pregnancy, and I have to say it was the bright spot during my stay in the hospital (aside from the whole giving birth to healthy twin boys, of course).

Beautifully written and truly original, Gruen’s story is set during the Great Depression and starts after the tragic death of Jacob’s parents. Alone and penniless (soon after the funeral he discovers that his father’s farm and veterinary practice has been mortgaged to the hilt) Jacob, an Ivy League veterinary student, literally hops a train and finds himself aboard a traveling circus train car.

Without at job – and now without a home – Jacob seizes the opportunity to use his knowledge and love for animals to earn a living as the animal trainer for the traveling show. After befriending – and ultimately falling in love with – Marlena, a beautiful ex-ballerina and the star of the main event, he soon learns that behind the glitz and glamour of a circus production lays dark secrets and deadly jealousies.

A love story that is filled with passion, intrigue and a most unusual heroine, Water for Elephants is an absolute must-read. And as long as Hollywood doesn’t do anything stupid (like try to change one single thing about the story) it should be an absolute must-see.

Book review: "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger

So, I lied. At least to myself. When I started on this book review journey, I had intended to review books that I loved, books I wanted to savor and share with everyone else. And I meant that at the time. I mean, books that are that good are meant to be shared, and that’s the point of these reviews, right?

But there’s one book that I can’t stop thinking about. And it’s been almost a year since I read it. I suppose I’m hung up on the fact that I should have liked it. It was so close to being good but just wasn’t, and that bugs me.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger had all of the makings for a great read: an interesting plot, a timeless (literally) love story, the potential for compelling characters and well-placed red herrings along the way. But it fell short. Instead of being whisked away into a book where anything was possible, the reader instead is bogged down in details and stuck in a truly complicated story with tedious dates and ages of people to try to remember.

The story starts confusing. And maybe it’s supposed to. We are talking about time travel, of course, and that’s always a subject that’s tough to weave into any tale, regardless of what medium is being used to tell it. But this was so confusing that it took away from the characters, and for me – a truly character-driven reader – that meant the story was doomed from the beginning.

I’m okay with some mystery, which is I think what the author is trying to establish, to twist her readers into the folds of the plot, only to upend us with big revelations and “aha!” moments. Except there weren’t any. Instead, it only got more confusing.

One thing I can say, the book is aptly titled: The time traveler’s wife is the only constant. She is the stabilizing factor in the story, the reader’s anchor. Clare Abshire is married to librarian Henry DeTamble who can’t control his tendency to time travel. And the only way to keep track of where you are in time is by where Clare is in the story.

Henry was born with the ability to travel through time, and with this ability he has been able to see and experience more than any of us could imagine, including meeting with younger and older versions of himself throughout periods of his life. Unfortunately for Henry, he can’t control it, creating a nuisance out of something that could have been one heck of a beneficial gift. He is able to feel the episodes coming on and is usually able to escape somewhere private for his departure, but his landing can never be planned. He arrives at his destination nude and penniless and never knows when he’ll make it back to his present time.

All of these factors lend to a pretty intriguing love story with what should be curious questions for the reader: How does Clare cope? How does someone, who lives an otherwise normal, linear life love - not to mention keep track of - a time-traveling husband? What is the potential science involved in this theory?

The only problem is with the last question in this sequence: Who cares?

Even despite her more-than-adequate writing skills, Niffenegger doesn’t make me care about the characters or the plot or the outcome. As Henry DeTamble can attest, special gifts are usually both a blessing and a curse, much like time travel or good writing skills coupled with a huge imagination. Niffenegger’s blessing is that imagination, which is also her curse because of the befuddling details required to explain her ideas.

Based on the cumbersome and clunky read that was The Time Traveler’s Wife, I’d think twice before I picked up another of Niffenegger’s books.