Irish Readers discussion

June 2011 - Water for Elephants- Spoiler Thread

just finished. took me a day i think. it was really easy to get through. definitely preferred the whole old man bits. probably shouldn't have considering the story was kinda centered around him as a young man.

loved the author notes at the end. (:

all in all, enjoyable/likable. 3*

Just finished reading. An extremely easy read which I kind of liked nearly despite myself. I agree with Sophie though, I much preferred Jacob as a grumpy old man rather than the young idiot.

The plot is meh, just your standard love story, for me a bit unconvincing. There just doesn't seem to be any real tension between the characters, no magic, or anything to really make you believe their falling in love, load of perfunctory cliches instead. Marlena's so boring that I wanted to scream every time she turned up in a story. Generally the characters are painfully underdeveloped and papery.

What saved the book for me was its setting. I've always had a soft spot for the circus. I got a giggle out of Jacob's disastrous night of debauchery with Barbara and Nell and some of Rosie's antics.

I gave it 3 stars in the end, in big part on the account of the last chapter - 93 year old grumpy old man running away with a circus rocks! :)

All in all it's an easy read that will be equally easily forgotten. Also... why chose for a group reading a book that has so little potential to inspire discussion? By all means prove me wrong and start some sensible debate. But I wonder, what about? How the old people became irrelevant in our society? The animal rights issues? Or how people's morality becomes miraculously agile when they hit on hard times? I mean Jacob's supposed to be a good guy, right? Frankly, he's at the very least morally dubious. He knows about redlighting and is perfectly happy continuing as if nothing at all happened as long as it doesn't concern anyone he personally knows and likes. And Marlena? When she accuses herself of being stupid, after finding out about men being thrown out of the train, well she's right - it took her 4 years to figure that out? Little dumb princess!

Ok, I guess there are some points for discussion, but really, there are books that actually explore those subjects in depth and with some intelligence. I mean, I love my escapist literature as much as the next person, but I guess not to this extent.

It was too easy going to be bothered thinking about anything in it. the only bit i was a bit like woah what happened there was when whathisface i don't even remember his name anymore, marlena's husband, throws her over his shoulder and then jacob is knocked out. so like. i was like wtf. did she get raped or what then. and i know he goes to the bedroom and she's not there but that's hours later so anything could have happened. and you never find out. and fair enough since it happened to her not jacob and the story's following what he knows. but don't you think he'd have wanted to ask what actually happened? iuno. :/

I finished this yesterday and I have to say, while i enjoyed reading it, it isn't as good as people have made it out to be. I have it 4 stars because i really liked old man Jacob, i loved the circus setting and Rosie and i absolutely loved the ending.
But i didn't think there was much of a love story, i completely agree with what has been said so far. I didn't believe how they fell in love or when for that matter, i didn't see much passion or desire there. As for Marlena.....she brought very little to the story.
Having said that it was very easy to read and i am glad i have read it.

I'm not long finished with this entertaining book. I don't think I can add much to Joanna's fair evaluation of the novel: an implausible story, well told with not a few lazy characterisations peppered throughout.

Am I the only one by the way who felt that Gruen seems to have plucked her three main characters (excluding the elephant, of course) straight out of Sophie's Choice and then put them through a John Steinbeck wash?

I enjoyed the novel. It was a wondeful quick read and I loved the twist on who committed the murder. I'm also a huge dork and didn't expect there to be a happy ending and was quite happy with how it was all resolved. I usually despise books like this because they appear so simple and obvious, but as some said above, the setting made it seem different from the rest.

I thought it was a decent read, but nothing extraordinary. I'm kind of dreading the movie because I have an intense, passionate hatred towards Robert Pattinson on top of the fact that he doesn't look remotely Polish. I agree with Kat that the ending was pretty awesome. While it wasn't anything exceptional, there were plenty of funny moments sprinkled throughout and I believe the characters were interesting and well-developed. I also like how Gruen added in random factual stuff other than it just being a random imagining.