Book Review: 2/27

Book Review: 'Water for Elephants' written July 12, 2007

This book review by Elizabeth Judd analysed the book "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen.  It was extremely informative and insightful and therefore the reader is receiving the best a book review can offer.

Judd begins by giving a detailed summary of the plot.  Although her summary was lengthy, there was much plot to cover in this book and she did a good job shortening it as much as possible.  Also, her use of honorific diction throughout the summary provided the reader with a small glimpse of her true critique to come.

It was especially interesting that Judd chose to use imagery in this review.  She stated that the circus (the main setting of the novel) symbolized "the warped vigor of capitalism".  This deep analysis of the author's message is important to add into a review because it gives the reader perhaps the most important information about the book's message.  Judd backed up her claims, but she could have used more examples from the text in order to make her claims more valid.

Judd states that "Gruen's prose is merely serviceable" which is a bold statement to make without any explanation.  Also, it is interesting that the language that Judd exemplified in this review (which was advanced and adjective-heavy) would be so much deeper than her opinion of Gruen's.  In other words, she claims that Gruen used "serviceable" prose, and therefore the audience that reads that novel will probably be at that reading level.  It is therefore strange to write a review catering to a more advanced reader than the book seemed to be intended for.  She could have fixed this by writing with simpler diction.

Overall, I thought that Judd's book review was successful.  The audience is left feeling well-informed about the plot of the book and also about some of the critiques.  However, using simpler diction would have ensured that the review could reach a wider range of readers, especially those that the book was intentionally written for.