Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

This whole story is told by Jacob Jankowski, a Polish American and the narrator. When he tels his story, he is 90 or 93 years old (we are never sure). He is in a nursing home and is a very grumpy man. 

This book starts on a terrible note. The narrator named Jacob, a 23 year old  college student studying to be a veterinarian, has just learned that his parents passed away in a fateful car accident. Grieving and looking for something new, he jumps onto a passing train. What he doesn't know is that particular train is a circus train for the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth on it's way to perform. Jacob soon becomes the circuse's veterinarian and falls madly in love with Marlena, the horse-performer and the wife to August, a man who is a paranoid schizophrenic and his boss who likes to beat his animals and his wife. 
After several weeks of the circus moving from own to town, they get word of the fact that another circus is going out of business. They rush over there as quickly as possible and start paying a very low price for most of the animals. One of their mane prizes is Rosie, the elephant. Rosie is said to be extremely stupid but they soon find out that she does not understand english but does understand polish.   
She soon becomes the focus of the circus and Marlena and August work together to put on her show with Jacob helping with the polish frases. 
During this whole episode, everyone is terrified of being "red-lighted" which is essentially being thrown off the train while it is moving. Most of this happens at night as they wake you up. 
As Augusts case worsens, he starts to beat Rosie and Marlena more and more. After a very brutal beating, Marlena leaves August to stay in a hotel while she is not performing. After finding this out, Jacob attempts to kill August in his sleep but finds he can not. He then decides to leave his knife on Augusts pillow as a threat. Once he comes back to his room, he finds that his roommates have been "red-lighted" in his absence. 
The next morning, some of the people that were "red-lighted" return and promptly let out all of the animals during one of the performances which caused a stampede. During the commotion, Rosie the elephant smashed Augusts head and he died instantly. Due to this, the circus lost all of it's respect and customers and it was forced to shut down. Marlena and Jacob then leave the circus to begin their life together while taking with them Rosie, a monkey that Jacob has come to love and Marlena's horses. 
At the end of this book, it describes a circus appearing in front of the nursing home. With slow steps, Jacob makes it across the road and into the circus just to catch the end of the acts. He then meets the owner of the circus who was called Charlie and tells him that he was the veterinarian for the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Jacob then asks him if he could stay with the circus and sell tickets because that's what the old folk are for. Charlie agrees and Jacob finally feels home again. 

I enjoyed this book very much because it contains so much detail about all the animals and I enjoy the fact that this book uses many flashbacks to tell it's story.