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** spoiler alert ** I had been hearing wonderful things about "Water for Elephants" and I was honestly very excited to read it, after learning that Ms. Gruen had originally written it as part of NaNoWriMo, (an annual writing competition where you write a 50K word novel in 30 days, for those of you who are unfamiliar). I've participated in NaNo the last two years and am editing one of them for publication, so needless to say, the fact that someone had a NaNo published and that it was very successful made me want to read it even more. I felt I needed to support a fellow NaNo writer, and revel in their success.

I was wrong.

Like I said, I enjoyed the plot, and the frame device, Old Jacob flashing back to his younger days where the main story is. I even enjoyed the fact that Old Jacob was seemingly having early signs of dementia in which he was reliving his circus days.

I don't know if it is the fact that I'm a writer, or an English major, but there was a lot wrong, that prevented me from enjoying it as a simple read.

1. Too much dialogue. Almost every time characters interacted there was the following exchange: "Hey" "Hey. What's up" "Nothing, what's up with you?" "Oh I'm just doing blah blah blah, what do you need?" That's completely useless and just drags the story.

2. Too much focus on dick

Sorry to be crude, but there is. Gruen stats early on that Jacob is a virgin and from there on, any time something sexual is mentioned, she goes into detail, sloppy detail (no pun intended) at that.

And here is the sex scene fail. The whole story, you're waiting for Jacob and Marlena to finally get together, physically and they do, and the sex scene is only about three or four lines. And it's so cliched that I cringed. In fact here is the scene:

When she undoes my trousers and takes me in her hand, I pull away.

"Please," I gasp, my voice cracking. "Please. Let me be inside you."

Somehow, we make it to the bed. When I finally sink into her, I cry out.

3. The ending was too convenient.

Far too convenient. Bad guy is killed, Marlena and Jacob marry and have five children. They get to keep the elephant, the chimp and all her horses and work for the Ringling brothers for a few years before Jacob becomes a vet.

Loose end characters who had been main characters are killed.

With the exception of the grammar, if I didn't know better, I'd say I was looking at a first draft of a NaNo novel. The useless dialogue (which towards the end, didn't even sound like it was from the 1930s, more like today), the painful sex scenes and discussion of masturbation and dick and easy wrap-up.

Like I said, the story was fine and had potential, I just wish it had been executed in a better manner. This may be one of the rare cases that the movie (which comes out this spring) may actually be better than the book.