Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Published 2006 · 352 pages · 110,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romance
How hard is Water for Elephants to read?
Water for Elephants scores 19 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 25 out of 100
- Circus and veterinary terminology. Period-appropriate language.
- Sentence structure: 22 out of 100
- Abstraction: 18 out of 100
- Concrete, sensory storytelling. Plot-driven.
- Information density: 35 out of 100
- Rich historical detail embedded in a fast-moving plot.
- Narrative indirection: 18 out of 100
- Dual timelines: 1930s and present-day nursing home.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- The elephant as moral witness. Circus as microcosm of American life.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Old Jacob's wry commentary on his younger self.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Both timelines resolve clearly.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Alternating timelines with a climactic convergence.
How Water for Elephants is regarded
Water for Elephants holds a literary regard score of 28 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.