Water For Elephants

So this book is the same old story about an elderly gentleman sitting in a nursing reminiscing about when he was young and desperately in love with an unavailable woman. Except, this tale takes place in a traveling circus during the Great Depression. The setting of the story and the resulting characters make this book fresh and exciting. When your reading it you have no idea what's about to happen next.
The author, Sara Gruen, starts the book by showing us the end of the story. The circus falls apart and the jealous, abusive husband gets knocked upside the head and killed. We think the murderer is the wife, our main character's love interest. Then the author takes us even further to the end of the story, where the main character is alone in a nursing home. We know the end of the story, or at least we think we do.
Then we are sent right back to the 30s. The main character, Jacob, is a vet student whose parents are killed in a car accident. He breaks down, runs away, and ends up on a circus train. He is thrown into a world where everyone's jobs and lives depend on the circus and the dictator that runs it, Uncle Al. His first day there he meets August, the head animal trainer, and his wife Marlena and the love story begins.
The rest of the story alternates between the present Jacob, who is fighting for his dignity in the nursing home, and the past Jacob, who is fighting for survival and his love. When we are with the present Jacob we start to assume that we know how the story ends. We find out that he and Marlena end up married. Then we go to the past and the story shifts so quickly that we start to second guess what we have assumed. After all the old man might be senile.
We find ourselves completely immersed in circus life. Gruen has definitely done her research. The language that the characters use is very specialized, even between the groups within the story. The workmen talk one way and the performers talk a different way.
Each character is different. There's the angry but caring dwarf, that the main character has to share a room with. There's August, a paranoid schizophrenic who can switch for charming to murderous in seconds. There's Uncle Al, who cares more about money and having an impressive circus than he does about the people who work for them. There's Marlena, who cares for her animals deeply and is committed to staying with the husband that she hates.
Gruen keeps us guessing and second guessing. She constantly leaves us alone in the room with the triangle of Jacob, Marlena, and August. We watch the awkwardness and wonder whether or not our predictions are correct. At one point she uses the word pregrant to describe a long pause, while reminding us that Marlena is pregnant.
In the end we are relieved. The past Jacob gets to marry Marlena and the present Jacob gains freedom. However, Gruen gives us a little twist. Not everything works out the way we expect it to.