As you walk through the scratchy canvas flaps into the grandiose circular tent, the smell of freshly popped popcorn hits your nostrils. You hear vendors hawking their wares with shouts of “Get your peanuts, get your freshly salted peanuts right here.” You duck as a bag …more flies over your head making the hair on your neck snap to attention. Then you turn the page. Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is an outstanding piece of fiction that can so envelope the reader as to render them mute for hours on end while he frantically flips the pages, piecing together a you mans life. Any reader, who picks up this book, until the last word of the last sentence, is completely spellbound.
   The story opens to a chilling murder that won’t be resolved until the end of the novel. From here the story proceeds to follow the reminiscing of a ninety or ninety-three year old- he can never remember which- stuck inside a nursing home when out of the blue a circus arrives in town. From here the author takes you back in time to when this gentleman was in his early twenties. On track to become a veterinarian within a week, his life is devastated when his Polish parents are killed in a car crash. This leads to his subsequent lack of interest in his final exams and ensuing withdrawal from an Ivy League institution. Almost immediately he joins with a circus, befriends a dwarf, falls for a lovely woman, and declares war against her insane husband. Much of the remaining plot is intricately woven through hooker tents and riotous crowds. From one man's feelings for a married woman and lone dwarfs sexual needs.
   Because of its fast pace, divine story, and thorough descriptions this is truly a book to be savored. Full of excitement and adventure, this is sure to be a staple of modern fiction for years to come an, who knows, might even end up on a summer reading list or two. (less)