funeral train brought to life

The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Challenge: 100 Book Challenge 2011
Review: With the passage of Robert Kennedy's funeral train from New York to Washington as a framework, David Rowell fills this book with small details that make the stories come alive.  Rowell creates six stories from the hundreds of thousands of people who watched RFK's funeral train pass by (or, in one case, were on the train), and gives us a glimpse into a day in the lives of ordinary (fictional) Americans who were touched in ways large and small by his life and death.  This book is definitely not about RFK, though.  It's about these six sets of characters that Rowell has so realistically created.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

running away to join the circus

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction

Review: I spent most of this book wondering why Gruen chose to intersperse her primary story of a young man who found himself thrust into the circus life in 1931 with the musings of that same man at the age of 93. The story of how Jacob came to be in the circus and what happened to him there seemed like enough to me, and Jacob's aged voice seemed unnecessary. At the end of the book, though, I realized why she gave us both perspectives, and could hardly argue with her narrative device, as the closure it provides works so well.