Last week, the stomach bug that's going around came to visit my family.
My six-year-old was the first to fall. He woke us about 2am as he dashed down the hallway in a desperate attempt to make it to the bathroom "in time." No such luck. You know what happened next. First my daughter and then my husband began to feel queasy. More mad dashes. More failed attempts. More laundry. By the time I started to feel sick myself, my son was feeling better and demanding that I microwave him some canned ravioli. Just the smell -- groan.
Luckily, we had made our weekly trip to the library just before this adventure started. I'd picked up Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. This book buoyed me up during a rather long week. It's not a serious work, not quite meaty enough for the book group, but it is great fun. Gruen has a wicked sense of timing that kept me reading -- even when my head was fuzzy with fever. The novel is set in a depression-era circus train, and the characters include clowns, horse trainers, Polish-speaking elephants, and roustabouts. At it's heart, it's a love story complete with a happy ending. You won't need to catch a bug to enjoy it.
