Animal Crackers

From the moment I picked up Sarah Gruen's Water for Elephants, the child in me had been craving one thing; Barnum's animal crackers. My initial obsession with animal crackers started years ago, after attending the circus for the first time with my family, and I have yet to overcome it. I looked for days for animal crackers, scouring the shelves at the grocery store, the Bookie, and finally I found them. Alone of the shelf lay a lonesome box of Barnum's Animals. It is safe to say that for the entire last portion of the book I slowly ate my box of crackers, until I started to feel the similarity between myself and August, as I ate the snack animals in my box and he abused the real animals in the book.

Needless to say, I stopped eating my crackers for a while, but my craving for them has not subsided, and neither has my craving for Water for Elephants.

To be honest, I was devastated when I finished the book because I wanted it to go on and on forever. Frankly, I was even more devastated when we switched to our next book because, to me, it is in no way, shape, or form comparable to Water for Elephants. I miss Jacob, miss the animals, miss the vivid yet also dreary tone of the circus, but most of all, I miss Rosie. I guess for now I will just have to be content with the fake elephant in my little cardboard train car, because The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is doing anything but satisfying my hunger.