Books & Music May/June Modern Choice: Water for Elephants -Discussion thread- Tagged spoilers only!

jburgh

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This thread is our discussion thread for the Modern choice:

Water for Elephants

Please, tagged spoilers only. See my post #3 here for directions on how to use it.

Enjoy!!!
 
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Good choice! I just finished reading the book last week and loved it. It took a few chapters for me to get into it, but I ended up really enjoying it. The last chapter especially gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling and I just loved it. Hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did!
 
I am doing a test to see if the spoiler tags work in our forum like they do in TV and cinema

If the tag works then you will not be able to see my test unless you roll your mouse over it.

Hot dog, it works!

Please wrap the [ spoiler ]spoiler here[ /spoiler ] BB code tags (without the spaces in the brackets) around text you want to keep hidden as a possible spoiler. To unveil a spoiler, simply mouse over.

Now we can have spoilers, as long as we hide them.
 
I just finished this without realising that this was the month's modern choice.

Have to say that the author did do her research in order to achieve those vivid descriptions of the circus folks, the Disaster March, the hierarchical life in a circus (performers first, everyone else last). Granted she had a whole archive of wild circus stories to tap onto from the libraries (as she honestly admitted) and therefore reducing marks on the originality portion, I would still give her a lot of credit for putting together a well written and credible story.

I did not care too much for the underlying love story (it was a bit too cliche for me), but I was touched by how she alternated between the 90 year old Jacob and the young Jacob, and particularly loved the ending. It was very stark and tugged at my heartstrings when I had to read about all the old folks in the home and how after a fruitful life of bringing up their children, they are relegated to only 1 day a week of happiness when their children come visiting. All in all a very good book.

Towards the end of the book, Jacob's family did not turn up for his family day out and he ended up walking slowly and excruciatingly towards the circus. I thought this was a bit of a cop out by the author - she wanted her ending but did not know how else to direct the storyline towards that ending she wanted. She took pains to stress that Jacob's family always turned up, but they didn't on that very important day of his. Maybe it was to emphasize that his family did him wrong up to that so very important day of his life, but it was a bit of a spoiler in an otherwise rather good book.
 
I was underwhelmed by this book. I enjoyed the stories of the circus itself and the animals but I thought the characters were flat and the conversations were choppy and uninteresting. What was so special about Marlena? That she looked pretty in pink sequins and had a great routine? I felt like I didn't know much about the character by the end of the book and therefore I didn't care about the love story between her and Jacob.
 
I was underwhelmed by this book. I enjoyed the stories of the circus itself and the animals but I thought the characters were flat and the conversations were choppy and uninteresting. What was so special about Marlena? That she looked pretty in pink sequins and had a great routine? I felt like I didn't know much about the character by the end of the book and therefore I didn't care about the love story between her and Jacob.

Same here. She was so flat. Overall the book was just meh to me.
 
I loved this book. I generally have a hard time finishing books but this was easy for me. I had just finished The Time Traveler's Wife right before it, so it had a lot to live up to.

I felt that while the characters were flat, the story was easy to follow and I enjoyed the stories about the circus and the animals.
 
I listened to it on audio while driving and loved it. They had 2 different men reading for Jacob as young and old and lots of carnival music really added to the feel. Funny, I did not really see it as a love story even though there was a great love between Jacob and Marlena...