Category Archives: Book Review Blog

My book reviews and fun bookish news as a book blogger. All about other people’s books, and not my own. :-)

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen #50BookPledge

Posted on by
1

I read Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants mostly because the trailer for the movie looked very interesting, and I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having once tried Gruen’s other book Ape House, and finding so bored by it that I gave up halfway through. Elephants, however, was an utter delight to read, and I found myself zipping through it.

When he receives news of his parents’ death and having left him penniless, veterinary student Jacob Jankowski runs away and joins the circus. He falls in love with Marlena, who is the star of the horse act and wife of August, a cruel and abusive animal trainer. The story takes place in during the Great Depression, where circuses must struggle extra hard to survive. The circus Jacob joins has nowhere near the grandeur of the Ringling Brothers, yet has its own cast of characters. It has a clear class system, and when things get especially rough, only performers get paid and workers know better than to complain. As both the circus vet and friend of the performer-class Marlena, Jacob straddles the uneasy line dividing the classes, eating at the performers’ side of the cafeteria, but being classified as a worker on payday. Circus owner Uncle Al is a greedy swindler who has no compunction about “red lighting” (throwing off a moving train) workers to save costs.

The appeal of any circus story is the cast of characters, and Gruen certainly peppers this book with a colourful bunch. Jacob is the compassionate foil to August. While he starts off angry at his father (also a vet) for having healed animals in exchange, literally, for beans, Jacob soon comes to understand his father’s love for animals, and comes to care for the circus’ menagerie. As a love interest, Marlena is charming, and her love for her horses shows how perfect a match she is for Jacob. A dwarf, a drunk old man, and various other circus “freaks” provide a strong supporting cast — odd enough to keep us ever aware of the circus’ magic, yet human enough to keep it all believable.

The star, which anyone who has seen the movie trailer would know, is Rosie, the ten foot tall elephant who is introduced to August as being too dumb to train. It turns out she is actually quite intelligent, and her antics both add colour to the story (e.g. stealing lemonade) and make you cheer her on (her clear devotion to Marlena and hatred for August). The parts where Jacob gets to see a performance and is caught up in the magic are vividly described, and I at least wished I was there. Little details like “having a straw house,” which is when all the seats are sold out, so the circus puts straw on the ground so more people can still come in, are wonderful reminders of the level of excitement a circus performance can inspire.

Elephants moves from Jacob’s time in the circus to Jacob at ninety (or ninety-three, it’s hard for him to remember these days) at a senior’s home. A circus is setting up just outside the home, and he eagerly awaits his family to take him to the circus. This Jacob is just as lovable as his younger self. Nonagenarian Jacob is cantankerous, and almost offended by a fellow resident who claims to have carried water for elephants in a circus, which Jacob insists is impossible. He clearly misses the excitement and the magic of the circus, and by the end of this book, you will too.

Tiger, Tiger, Margaux Fragoso #50BookPledge

Posted on by
2

Wow. What an incredibly powerful book. Margaux Fragoso’s memoir Tiger, Tiger is not an easy read. There were moments where I literally had to stop reading, because I was just either getting too uncomfortable or too angry. A co-worker admitted to me that she was hesitant about starting Tiger, Tiger; having young children herself, she was afraid that she would find the book too disturbing. This same co-worker found Emma Donoghue’s Room difficult for that same reason. I did sympathize with Jack and his mother in Room, but I was fine reading it. I found it difficult to read Tiger, Tiger, and I mean that in the best way possible.

When Margaux was seven, she met fifty-one year old Peter at a swimming pool. Peter invites her and her mother to visit his house, ostensibly to meet his wife and hang out with his two sons. Margaux’s father is very verbally and physically abusive, especially to Margaux’s mother, who is on psychiatric medication, so the mother jumps at the chance to form a friendship with a seemingly nice man. Turns out Peter is really interested in Margaux, and the way he seduces and manipulates her is just disgusting. Without any of Humbert Humbert’s eloquence or, let’s face it, Jeremy Irons’ seductive voice in the Lolita audiobook, Peter’s pedophilia is just there, horrific and disturbing and outright disgusting.

Part of what makes this such an emotional read is that Fragoso writes each chapter solely from the point of view of the age she was when the events occurred. So, when Peter attempts to use guilt to make eight-year-old Margaux perform oral sex on him, we as readers don’t have the filter of present-day Margaux Fragoso in her twenties to distance us from the eight-year-old girl’s emotions. Her disgust at the request, mixed in with guilt because he had given her a treat earlier, is all too real, and Margaux’s descriptions are bitter reminders of her eight-year-old mind.

The vividness of Fragoso’s writing reveals her relationship with Peter in stark, unforgiving detail. We see the young Margaux confused and angered that her father would make fun of Peter’s false teeth; later on, we see the teen Margaux realizing how wrinkled Peter’s skin is, and how emotionally dependent he is becoming on her. We see the turmoil of her discomfort, then possessiveness and even love for Peter. We see her grow up, and as she becomes more aware – of the way in which Peter manipulates her and of how she can use her sexuality to turn the tables and regain power – we root for her, not just to gain power over Peter, but to become free of him. In a way, the latter half of the book, where Margaux has become a teenager, is easier to read, because while Margaux is still definitely being victimized by Peter, she is no longer just a victim. She is, albeit slowly, beginning to take back her life.

I’m not even sure if I can describe how I felt reading this book, and I’m just amazed that Fragoso was able to write such a compelling, cohesive account of such experiences. I was furious at the way Margaux’s father kept belittling her and her mother. I was disgusted at Peter’s actions, at his insistence that society just doesn’t understand that he and Margaux are in love, and at his attempts at emotionally manipulating Margaux into staying with him rather than building her own life. Margaux is never overtly furious in her depiction of Peter, and, in a way, such a straightforward, matter-of-fact account just makes the horror of his actions so much starker.

Tiger, Tiger is not an easy read, but it’s definitely well worth the effort. Highly recommended.

Die with Me, Elena Forbes #50BookPledge

Posted on by
1

Elena Forbes’ Die with Me is a classic police procedural. A serial killer targets young, vulnerable women. He cultivates a relationship with them, then murders them and makes it look like suicides. The odd thing is that the killer didn’t appear to have raped the victims (at least one victim had died a virgin).

This is the first book in the DI Mark Tartaglia series, and unlike other mystery series I enjoy (e.g. Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti, Ian Rankin’s John Rebus, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser), nothing about Tartaglia really made him stand out to me from other literary detectives. He’s a fairly standard old school cop, skeptical about psychological profiling, and he has a complicated love life, with an ex-lover coroner, a new boss with whom his relationship goes from antagonistic to protective, and his partner DS Sam Donovan, with whom he has unacknowledged chemistry.

Despite it being “A Mark Tartaglia mystery”, Donovan seemed to take at least as much of a central role in the investigation. In complete honesty, I found her character to be more fleshed out, and  left the book with the sense that I saw her detective work more than I saw Tartaglia. Donovan’s definitely a very likable character, and I look forward to reading more about her in future books.

Forbes chooses to focus on the investigation, and this is a good thing, because the investigation itself is pretty compelling. The killer targets really vulnerable girls, those who are ostracized in school or aren’t physically attractive, and minor details (e.g. he can’t stand the scent of Pear soap) hint at the source of his psychosis. The red herrings are fairly easy to spot, but the ultimate solution, I admit, surprised me.

Reading Die with Me is like watching an episode of Law & Order or CSI. It’s a fast-paced, entertaining, engrossing police procedural. It’s a lot of fun to read, and I for one found myself racing through the pages to see what new clues Donovan and Tartaglia have uncovered and who the killer will ultimately turn out to be.