I am a little disappointed. Although the author no doubt put much research into this, I never got into the story. Maybe because I felt the book didn't have a really strong, solid plot to it and it just went on and on about Jacob's day working at the circus. The romance that was thrown in wasn't believable and therefore, failed to further the paper-thin plot.
Any good story needs a strong cast of characters. 'Water for the Elephants' had many interesting characters that went in and out of the woodwork but none of them felt real to me. They were shallow and two-dimensioned and I didn't have much emotional connection to them. The one character that was arguably more developed was the dwarf and in the end, even Jacob didn't seem to care much about him. The main character Jacob wasn't engaging to me; he's faced with animal abuse and spousal abuse and he feels sorry, etc. etc, but he's not proactive about anything. His romance with Marlena was...contrived and random. Jacob showed no indication on WHY he loves her - readers are just told that 'She looks like Catherine' (a college crush) and they just fall madly in love with each other. The dialogue between them was just cringe-worthy and mostly consisted of Marlena bursting into tears. Not exactly strong enough to have the whole book revolve around their relationship, which I think is the downfall of this book.
Any good story needs a strong cast of characters. 'Water for the Elephants' had many interesting characters that went in and out of the woodwork but none of them felt real to me. They were shallow and two-dimensioned and I didn't have much emotional connection to them. The one character that was arguably more developed was the dwarf and in the end, even Jacob didn't seem to care much about him. The main character Jacob wasn't engaging to me; he's faced with animal abuse and spousal abuse and he feels sorry, etc. etc, but he's not proactive about anything. His romance with Marlena was...contrived and random. Jacob showed no indication on WHY he loves her - readers are just told that 'She looks like Catherine' (a college crush) and they just fall madly in love with each other. The dialogue between them was just cringe-worthy and mostly consisted of Marlena bursting into tears. Not exactly strong enough to have the whole book revolve around their relationship, which I think is the downfall of this book.
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