I have not done book reviews on our blog before because I usually just enjoy reading on my own and keeping my opinions to myself. However, I started a Goodreads account, this book is really popular (to the point that a motion picture was made), and I realized that its probably a good exercise for me to take some time to reflect on what I read. This one did not take much time to reflect on, but I had some strong opinions about it. If you dont want to read it obviously you dont have to...this is more for me.
This book was way over hyped. It opens in a Notebook-esqe manner with a very old man in a nursing home recalling his past. It seemed like a convenient way to get the reader interested in this man and his story but ends up falling flat. It was entertaining and fairly well written. However, the characters really did not grab me and I felt like the story was missing parts. I was just starting to get invested and interested when things started to come to a close. I couldn't tell what the author was trying to say about life or love (if anything). I guess part of it was that I expected this to be a romance, but it was more a story about the depression era circus from a first person point of view. In that respect it was interesting.
*A few spoilers included in descriptions below*
The "heroine" of the tale is not very gripping and I didn't really feel any chemistry between her and the main character, Jacob. She probably has all of 10 lines in the whole book. Its sweet that she likes animals and he likes animals, but I cant really see that being enough to take the risks he does in the plot.
The villain (August) is mentally ill and pitiful. However, it was hard to tell that he was the villain or why until half way through the book when he starts to beat the elephant (this scene actually just made me dislike Jacob all the more because he doesn't do anything about it despite being unhappy because he doesn't want to get kicked off the circus and ruin his chances to be with Marlena, love interest). Up until that point it just seemed like the main character didn't like him because he had an inexplicable attraction to August's wife.
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