Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Loved it! The love story was great, the Depression era setting was great, the circus details were great. (I still have my same complaint about modern literature: there are too many graphic sex scenes. We just don't need all those details!) However, I really liked the way Gruen balances between the present and the past with the first person point of view. Stepping into the mind of the 93 year old was terrific because so few books have a protagonist that old. When I finished the book, I enjoyed going back and re-reading the beginning. I enjoyed reading about a "train circus," and I enjoyed getting to know Rosie, the elephant. There were a lot of well defined characters in the plot; the interview with the author at the end of the book where she discusses how she wrote the book was interesting, too. I hope the movie adaption turns out well. It's too good of a book for Hollywood to ruin.