Firehorse - A review!

Firehorse
by Diane Lee Wilson
2010

My first horsey read in ages! I had not heard of this book before finding it in a second hand bookshop a few days previously. What a stellar read!

Firehorse focuses on fifteen year-old Rachel, her struggles with her family and their beliefs that a stable is no place for a girl. While Rachel dreams of galloping astride a horse, her father holds her back and insists on her acting as a girl in the 1800s should. Be meek and submissive and cast a good impression for the family's rise up social ladders.

Then The Governor's Girl comes into her life. The Girl is a Firehorse, one of a team of four that pulls the fire engines around Boston. Close to death and badly burned, The Girl is a spirited, willful animal that would prefer to plant a hoof in the head of any human rather than
allow them to help her.

Through The Girl, Rachel learns that she does have a place: as a veterinarian.

Hey, look. I am not a fan of historical fiction but there is something special about this novel. It is more than the healing power of love a la many horse novels out there. *cough* Rachel actually has complex
relationships with her family (and the rather hunky vet) and has her own personal battles to win too.

The writing is fantastic. The plot complex and intriguing. It is so good, in fact, that I cannot be snarky about it. Read it and do not be put off by the setting. Any horse-lover will enjoy this one!

The Outside of a Horse

The Outside of a Horse
by Ginny Rorby
2010

Hannah Gale starts volunteering at a horse stable because she needs a place to escape. Her father has returned from the Iraq war as an amputee with posttraumatic stress disorder, and his nightmares rock the household. At the stable, Hannah comes to love Jack, Super Dee, and Indy; helps bring a rescued mare back from the brink; and witnesses the birth of the filly who steals her heart. Hannah learns more than she ever imagined about horse training, abuse, and rescues, as well as her own capacity for hope. Physical therapy with horses could be the answer to her father's prayers, if only she can get him to try.

I wound up really liking this book. Allow me to explain. 

The Whirlwind is not a metaphor.

Whirlwind
by Alison Hart
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Sequel to Shadow Horse.

When thirteen-year-old Jas Schuler found her beloved mare, Whirlwind, dead in her paddock, she thought her heart would break. Now Jas knows the truth.

Whirlwind is alive.

Wealthy horse breeder Hugh Robicheaux faked the mare's death, collected insurance money on her life, then sold her to an unsuspecting buyer. And he's going to get away with his scheme, too. Unless someone can find Whirlwind. And that's exactly what Jas plans to do.

But hunting for Whirlwind is dangerous. Hugh has threatened to destroy everything Jas holds dear unless she stops her search. As she struggles with her desire to find Whirlwind without letting the people she loves get hurt, Jas must ask herself: Is all this worth risking for a horse she may never find?

I have heard repeatedly about the amazing Shadow Horse, Alison Hart's award nominated horsey mystery. For some reason, I never got around to reading it, even when I knew Whirlwind was right around the corner. After reading this, I'm making Shadow Horse a priority.

Because Whirlwind is pretty awesome.

Two months after the beginning of Shadow Horse, Jas is nearing the end of what is essentially court ordered house arrest. She's pretty obsessed with the idea that Whirlwind might still be alive, and so is the insurance company that Hugh Robicheaux has a history of scamming. Hugh, however, has no intention of being brought down, because people like him "always win." People like Jas have ankle monitors and live in mobile homes, like they're supposed to. Lucky for Jas, she's not about to accept anything that Hugh says, and uses just about every resource around her to marshal interest in finding Whirlwind.

Enter the insurance agency's investigator, M. Baylor. All of a sudden finding Whirlwind stops looking like a crapshoot and more of an actual possibility. Hugh knows it, too, and starts to threaten not only Jas, but Second Chance Farm. Hugh also knows more than he should, leading Jas to suspect there's a spy in their midst, but at a charity case rescue like Second Chance Farm, who could be feeding information to a man they all loathe?

There's illegal search and seizure, sexual tension, and murder.

There's even a hurricane.

It's awesome like that.

What I like about Whirlwind is that it's not just a horse book and it's not just a horse mystery. It's a young adult novel about a girl who's going through a lot, as well as trying to grow up. She's a barely fourteen-year-old kid taking care of her elderly grandfather, navigating a possible romance, and trying to take down the most influential man in town. It sounds like a lot for one girl and a rescue farm to tackle, but it's done with a gritty realism that had me immediately addicted.

Jas isn't a spoiled brat with horse ownership on the brain. She's human. She gets prickly and lashes out (usually at Chase, the boy she's in teenage love with, which never fails to amuse me), and she recognizes the need to apologize (usually to Chase, as it turns out) in order to remain a likable horse girl. And while she mostly lands in serious main character territory, she knows how to apply some humor into her life. She's also (dare I say it?) proactive. Nothing just randomly turns out in Jas's favor that she doesn't work hard for, something I think we can all appreciate.

Plus, she doesn't like Twilight. I mean, that alone is enough.

While this book does have a beautiful and satisfying ending, it leaves plenty of undeveloped plot for another sequel. I'll go ahead and say that I'm expecting this to be a second book in a trilogy. It may take another ten years to see it, but the potential is definitely there. In the meantime, Whirlwind is strong enough to stand on its own.

Overall: Totally worth your money. Go buy it.

A Horse Called Hustle is not called Hustle

A Horse Called Hustle by CJ Love 2009

Jessa Wilder's grandfather has one small desire: to win back the horse that was stolen from him in a poker game by that stack-the-deck, horse-pinching card sharp Cole Hannible. Jessa is not above fleecing the average man in a game of poker. That's why she's the Seven-Card Stud Shootout Champion of the Southeast. But Cole Hannible isn't your average man, and even though Jessa bluffs him for a while, he's got an ace up his sleeve called revenge. Jessa Wilder will never get her hands on his Triple Crown winner, A Horse Called Hustle. He's made sure of it...and it could cost them both their hearts.

In case you were wondering, the horse isn't called Hustle. The horse is called A Horse Called Hustle. Think how fantastic our lives would be if we named things this way? Somehow, I think redundancy would be the least of our problems. Anyway, Jessa (or The Girl They Call Jessica, But She Prefers Jessa), has arrived in Ocala. Or somewhere around in there. Due to some extreme planning of heights never reached before by man, she arrives at a gas station, where Cole (or The Dastardly but Beautiful Man Named Cole) has been working on his truck. She accidentally honks the horn, and he just happens to wander over to make her look like a moron, and incidentally notices she's leaking oil all over the place. She refuses his help, drives off, finds him later on the road with his broken down truck, and offers to drive him to this 4,500 acre thoroughbred farm. So the plan to get Cole to lose his Triple Crown winner via poker is well under way. Right around here I suspected this story was going to turn to hilarity. It started when Cole picks up a rifle and jumps into Jessa's Porsche, which then promptly breaks down as a hurricane whirls up and leaves them deserted on some Florida highway. Jessa then reveals her cat named Stanley, who follows them determinedly through the woods as they attempt to walk through the hurricane on their way to Cole's farm. They don't make it, and stumble into an abandoned barn, where they decide to pass the time by playing poker, all in hopes that Jessa will somehow get Cole to bet his Triple Crown winner, A Horse Called Hustle. That doesn't exactly happen, but she does get him to bet a "horse of her choice," and this is written out all nice and legal on a Taco Bell napkin. So, to recap, this ploy to get Cole to lose his famous horse to her in a poker game included: 1. Strategically out of gas Porsche 2. Ignorance involving how to pump gas 3. The wild hope that Cole will happen to be at this gas station at this precise time 4. Sabotaging Cole's truck so it will break down 5. Cutting the Porsche's oil line so that it will break down after she has managed to pick up Cole 6. A HURRICANE The hurricane passes, so Cole, Jessa and Stanley the cat go on their merry way. They run into the angriest cow on the face of the earth, cross a river by jumping through trees (with a house cat, mind you) and randomly wind up back at the cars. Someone picks them up and says, "Oh, hey, that's The Girl They Call Jessica, But She Prefers Jessa WILDER. You know, the granddaughter of the guy you hate who wants your horse?" And Cole gets all upset and refuses to speak to Jessa, even after she sends him twenty steaks and balloons and Hallmark cards and essentially decides that she'd rather not screw around with him and his horse. Of course, he does not tell her he hates her to her face, he sends her a telegram. Apparently Cole does not believe in pretty and insulting greeting cards. And then the real fun starts. Cole and Jessa's grandfather, That Guy Named Pappy or Poppy or Somebody, "hate" each other. And they take this hatred out on each other through ridiculous pranks that seem to have some meaning, but I failed to really care. The important thing here is that Jessa is on Cole's To Prank list. This inevitably involves a "haunted house" and the reenactment of what I recognized to be my life as a college student. Eventually Jessa and Cole find themselves lost in Florida again, restlessly searching for a BP that never appears. The pranks continue continuing. Cole outbids Jessa on all those Norwegian Fjords she wanted just to irk her, etc. Then someone lets a bull into the stud barn, scattering stallions in all directions. Cole blames Jessa for this incident, shakes her around because this is romantic and not abusive, and then randomly decides to play poker with Paddy or Pappy or whoever for her hand in marriage or what not. He loses. No one cares. Because the The Girl They Call Jessica, But She Prefers Jessa is more loved than A Horse Called Hustle. I suppose they get married and have many fantastic adventures in the woods of Florida. Just some random quotes: - Slapping him on the back, they congratulated him for surviving the wilds and facing the hurricane like a man. It was a guy moment. - It was all very dramatic as the sun sank lower in the sky and the lamps beneath the oak trees lit automatically. - "We're grown men. By god, you have to be a man to pull some of the stunts we've...they've pulled. And you have to have a driver's license, and know someone who's studied electricity, or at least physics. A lawyer comes in handy once in awhile. We're men, okay?" - Not hungry, Jessa approached the free-sample lady, thinking to pass the time. - "Taco Bell," he said aloud. "I guess it's time to go south of the border." - "Where are you going?" "To stare out the window." As you can see, this book was about two parts hilarious and one part awesome. It has no clue on the horse end of things, but I think I was too entranced by the rest of it to even begin noticing that problem. That said: hour and a half of your time, tops. It's time well spent.

The Georges and the Jewels

The Georges and the Jewels
by Jane Smiley
2009

Abby Lovitt has been riding horses for as long as she can remember, but Daddy hasn't let her name a single one. He calls all their geldings George and their mares Jewel and warns her not to get attached. After all, the horses are there on the ranch to be sold, and if they're not gone in six months, they're just a waste of time and hay.

But with all the stress at school (the Big Four--Linda, Mary A., Mary N., Joan--have turned against her) and home (nothing feels right with her brother, Danny, gone), Abby can't help but seek comfort in the Georges and the Jewels, who greet her every day with pricked ears and soft nickers. Except for one: the horse who won't meet her gaze, the horse who bucks her off every chance he gets, the horse Daddy insists she ride and train. Abby knows not to cross her father, but she knows, too, that she can't get back on Ornery George. And suddenly the horses seem like no refuge at all.

The only other book I've read of Jane Smiley's is Horse Heaven, a megalithic opus that I have a vague memory of liking despite what I always felt was a muddled and tedious storyline. I had no real expectations with The Georges and the Jewels, only that I desperately wanted it to be good so I could have another YA horse book to put in my steadily growing stack of good YA horse books. It's such a malnourished little pile of books, you guys. It needs a good writer to love and nurture it!

Well, Jane Smiley has a Pulitzer, so I don't think we can get better than this. The Georges and the Jewels is set in 1960s California. Abby helps her father with the family business: buying and selling horses. This feels like it used to be a fairly smooth operation, but Abby's sixteen-year-old brother recently left due to differences with their father, putting all the work on Abby, who is facing down Ornery George, the first horse she's genuinely a little afraid of. Abby's dad is determined to train all of their horses to the point where "a little girl could ride them," and Ornery George is light years from this goal.

Meanwhile, a new girl has arrived in Abby's small seventh grade class, creating drama with the Big Four, a group of girls that rule seventh grade with an iron fist. Abby is a girl who can only be described as nondescript. She keeps her head down and minds her own business, keeping silent when she sees things and ignored when she tries to bring anything up. Stella, the new girl, stirs up trouble without even trying, and drags Abby into it both as a buffer and a scapegoat, all for the attentions of a boy that finds wonder in discussions about bologna sandwiches. Abby just wants to get through seventh grade, keep the one friend she's got, and get a good grade on her Catholic mission model without her born again parents finding out and having a fit.

Oh, and she also wants to figure out Ornery George, who is a long way from help. The book does a nice job with Ornery George. There aren't any quick fixes to be applied to his character, and Abby is not the sole person responsible for his training. She's a good rider, but she's inexperienced and frightened. Not to mention, Ornery George has her number. The descriptions of the training they put George through are nicely done, and I actually followed a lot of it, which means I can give this book bonus points for making sense. Like I said, no wacky sudden revelations will be found here. Ornery George is a slow but steady student, and Abby is an easy kid who is falling into the business of buying and selling horses without really realizing it.

The one qualm I have with the book is what felt like a loose end regarding what happens when Abby's parents find out about the mission models the school is having the kids build. There's a string of religion in the book that abruptly comes to a frayed end, with Abby getting worried about her father Bible thumping one of her teachers as she looks on helplessly. I didn't expect the religion aspect to come to some great enlightened ending here, but there was something about it that felt unfinished.

The rest of it, however, finishes quite nicely.

Homestretch by Paul Volponi

Homestretch

by Paul Volponi

2009

Gaston Giambanco Jr. never figured himself for a runaway. But then again, Gas never figured his mother would be killed in a head-on collision caused by an illegal Mexican. Or that his poor excuse for a father would
actually go too far and beat him. So he hitches a ride out of state without a plan, only to find himself working at a racetrack stable alongside a family of Mexicans--exactly the kind of people his dad always taught him to hate, the kind of people who caused his mother's death.

What will Gas learn about himself, and the true meaning of family? And what will he do when his small stature causes an unscrupulous horse trainer to promise him glory and riches as a jockey, even if he can't ride well?

Review:

Paul Volponi is the namesake of the 2002 Breeders' Cup Classic winner, which you can witness beating out many fine racehorses here if you so desire, and correspondent for The Blood-Horse. I mention this because these qualifications hint at the rarely seen, yet undeniably powerful duo: racing knowledge and ability to comprehend grammar! It is like a balm for my tired soul.

Homestretch is short, sweet, and to the point. Gas lives in southern Texas, a hotbed of illegal alien activity if ever there was one, and his life is changed for the worse when his mother dies in the midst of all this activity. His father goes appropriately crazy, and Gaston suffers the alcoholism and beatings until he decides enough is enough.

This isn't to say that, although he is escaping his father, Gas hasn't picked up on his father's rampant racism. He has, although for the most part he keeps it to himself. Any outward sign that Gas is racist toward the illegals he winds up hitchhiking with is cut down to basic moodiness. The Mexican brothers he finds himself with in the back of a horse trailer probably chalk this up to teenage angst and collectively move on with their lives. Meanwhile, Gas rails to himself about "beaners" and abhores the notion of eating enchiladas and tacos while he mentally envisions his mother's car wreck. The horror!

The trailer drops off the boys at a fictional Arkansas racetrack named Pennington, near Hot Springs, where the very real Oaklawn Park resides. There, the Mexican boys are given jobs as grooms, and Gas is demoted to hotwalker when Dag, the "unscrupulous" trainer, discovers he has no idea what he's doing. Therefore the Mexicans are earning more than Gas, prompting another volley of internal racial angst. Eventually, Gas finds himself exercising the local crazy horse, Bad Boy Rising, and because he manages to hang on during the horse's careening around the track, Dag gets it into his head that Gas would make an excellent bug boy.

Gas is totally inexperienced, and should not be on a racehorse in any way, shape or form. Dag is very well aware of this, and intends to set himself up to win big as a result. If only Gas will play along.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Regarding the race issues this book spends the first hundred or so pages on, I'd say it's a little too short and to the point regarding their resolution. However, I liked the rest of the novel well enough that this didn't really bother me. Plus, it is a horse racing book set in Arkansas that I happened to read while in Arkansas. And the semi-love interest is a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, a little detail I apprecate because I am totally easy to please in that way.

Perhaps I am biased? Perhaps not. It's not a bad little book.

Rec: Bug Boy by Eric Luper

Bug Boy
by Eric Luper
2009

It is the summer of 1934, and even at the height of the Great Depression, money is no object for the socialites at posh Saratoga Race Course. The trouble is times are tough for everyone else, especially penniless track workers like fifteenyear- old Jack Walsh. When Jack suddenly graduates from exercise rider to apprentice jockey, or bug boy, he is an overnight sensation. Success brings him all sorts of attention, including that of a brainy blond beauty who is more involved with the gritty underbelly of the track than she lets on and a vicious thug who presses Jack to break his code as a jockey for a payoff that could solve all his family’s problems.

Set amid the rough backstretch of Thoroughbred racing, this edge-of-your-saddle read follows the course of a young athlete whose rise to glory in the most popular sport in America is accompanied by ever-increasing pressure to do something that could leave him trampled in the dirt.

Review:

We all know that I am a sucker for young adult horse fiction. Well, for good young adult horse fiction. My most dorky dream is that Sarah Dessen decides to write about a horse loving girl, and I cling to this dim hope in a slightly obsessive manner. To pass the time, I am on a neverending hunt for good YA horse books, and they are few and far between, my friends.

Yet, for whatever reason, the publishing world decided to sprinkle the market with YA horse fiction this year, taking a quiet breather from all the vampire books hoping to catch a ride on Twilight's super insane comet of crazy. Bug Boy by Eric Luper is one of these books. Set in Saratoga during a time when America was fresh out of Prohibition, but still suffering through the Great Depression, horse racing is at its height of popularity. Jack Walsh, exercise rider, is about to become New York's most celebrated bug boy. Thanks to a tragic accident, Jack is shoved into actually playing out what it means to live your dream. It may or may not be all that he had hoped.

Jack isn't what one might call a natural fit for the job. He's a tad too tall, a tad too heavy, and the ordeal of making weight is daunting, disgusting, and everything you'd expect it to be. The glitz and the glamour of 1930s Saratoga, however, is also what would make most people go through just about anything to be able to experience. He lands a girlfriend, a car, enough money to send home, but that dead monkey in his locker probably isn't a good sign, right?

No. No it is not.

I liked this one. The details were amazing, but Luper blends them into the story so that they don't feel like pointless trivia obtained to prove that there was some research going on here. Jack is a good, solid character, and I could never find myself wanting to throw something at him, which I find is my main reaction to most characters in most horse books. The only weaknesses, for me, were the great reveals in the end and the reactions to said great reveals that felt unbelievable or slightly forced. One reveal in particular felt like a moment where someone whips a sheet off the elephant in the room, and then having someone quickly cover it back up again. And most people never noticed the elephant, or the fact that it was uncovered, even briefly. Which made me question why there was an elephant to begin with.

I recommend this one, elephant or no.

Pine Hollow Tip: Stalking is perfectly acceptable if a boy doesn't want to talk to you.

The Trail Home
Pine Hollow #2
1998

Are there some problems even your best friends can't help you solve?

Callie Forester is out of the hospital after the car accident that nearly claimed her life. Now Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake are determined to help her on the road to recovery. But Stevie is still consumed by guilt. After all, she was driving the car; could it be her fault that Callie almost died? Scott Forester, Callie's brother, certainly seems to blame her. Meanwhile Carole Hanson wants to know what secret Ben Marlowe is hiding. Why won't he let anyone get close to him? What's he afraid of? And if she does find out, will it ruin their new friendship? As for Lisa Atwood, she's enjoying life in California, working on a TV show. Will she decide that California is the place to be and abandon her friends and boyfriend? This summer could mark the end of everything, or a brand-new beginning.

You know what's sort of annoying? This book. You know why it's sort of annoying? It reads like it was written by a life coach, or maybe a motivational speaker, or maybe someone who spends their time frolicking through fields of daisies. It mainly caused me to feel unnerved, because whenever I run into dialogue that is this formal (and therefore totally ridiculous) I get a little twitchy. For instance, this is a short book. Only 166 pages. But people tend to fly off into giant, unexpectedly deep discussions that I don't care about, which also seem rather redundant because you're pretty sure you always know what their conclusions will be. It's kind of like a lengthy episode of Dawson's Creek, only with shorter words. And it took me forever to finish it.

Also, this book is mainly about Carole's inability to mind her own business. Ben Marlowe is hiding something! He's quiet and sullen and totally not interested in people! Well, okay, why don't you just give him space then, Carole? Why do you suddenly feel the need to get in his business and decide to, I don't know, stalk him and stake out his house?

So while Carole is invading people's space in more ways than one, Stevie is upset because she was driving the car that sort of almost killed Fez and Callie. She immediately quits her pizza delivery job and goes to work at "the laundry." Callie's brother hates her. This is mostly left undeveloped. Her brother is still a giant twerp who actively hopes Lisa is miserable in California so she will come back to Virginia and his incessant hovering. Don't worry though, kids. He only does it because he "loves" her! Really!

But mainly it's all about Carole stalking Ben. And Ben catches Carole stalking him, because she somehow discovers his address and goes there to discover his giant secret. He is not...whatever it is she thought he was. He is poor. He lives on a street with rusted cars and not absolutely perfect lawns and dogs leashed to trees with frayed rope. You guys! Carole is attracted to the kid living on the wrong side of the tracks. It would be so adorable if she hadn't staked out his house and accidentally gotten caught because she actually decided to park right in front of his house. Oh, Carole. You dope.

And then Fez dies and Ben tells Carole all that she wanted to know and Carole has the nerve to tell herself that she kind of suspected what was up with Ben. Carole, shut up. You totally didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have been having a minor conniption fit over every tiny thing he wasn't telling you which leads to what? He's poor and wants to go to college? How is this even minorly interesting, CAROLE?

Oh, and Callie did therapeutic riding or something and PC is an equine angel. And Lisa is probably having the time of her life in California, but she keeps downplaying it because she's probably afraid of her boyfriend. I would be.

And then everyone had a deep conversation and decided that life was hard. The end.

• That meant untacking, grooming, watering, and feeding the sweet horse that had just exerted so much effort for their friend. Oh my God, is this how this book is going to be on every single page? *thumbs through book* YES. YES IT IS.

• "As if Max, or anyone here, could possibly ignore the needs of any horse!" And then Stevie picked up her skirts and sashayed back to the estate to resume her embroidery!

• Ben would never, ever, under any circumstances, do anything that would hurt a horse. That's great, person who wrote this. I kind of got it now! The Saddle Club characters aren't, like, animal abusers. I think it's very clear. You can stop being annoyingly repetitive now that you have gotten to page 28.

• Apparently helping Ben is going to be Carole's own personal Saddle Club project. What the hell does that mean? Carole, shut up about the stupid club apparently no one cares about anymore and do your damn job.

• Oh, good. I'm glad to know Fez isn't in "constant pain." He's just "in pain a lot of the time."

• Pine Hollow keeps the barn key in its "more or less secret hiding place under the mat outside the office door." Where do these people live? Utopia?

• Why do I get the feeling that this author should be editing Martha Stewart Living? Oh, it's because she uses words like piquant and tableau. PIQUANT and TABLEAU.

• Wow, Emily is a little go getter: Callie is going to do all the work and she's going to get better, and that'll make me look brilliant. With this author, I cannot tell at all if she is kidding.

• You think of me as someone who helps around the stable, someone you can laugh with or maybe rely on or borrow money from sometimes. Look, look! Friendship defined!

• Do we really need to read about Carole opening junk mail? What is pertinent about this?

• Oh hell. If Lisa is coding the fact that she's spending lots of time with Skye Ransom in a post card she's sending to the barn, she needs to break up with her boyfriend.

• "She's all yours, for now." Alex's creepy possessiveness rears its ugly head. Isn't it so fabulously attractive, ladies?

• Carole watched Ben work, gentle and kind. The veins stood out on his strong hands... This, kids, is why The Trail Home is a YA book. Well, this and the Dawson's Creek conversations.

Dancer: If some horse books are fantasies, this one is literal.

Dancer: A Novel
by Shelley Peterson
1996

First of all, I think it's worthwhile to say that one review pointed out that this book is "as ingenuous as early Nancy Drew" and that is pretty spot on. Therefore I'm going to have to let go of some of the serious WTF? moments that this book strings along at a consistent rate, because Dancer is 100% pure horse story fantasy. Fantasy as pure as the driven snow. That sort of pure that makes you feel a little sick after being exposed to it for a lengthy amount of time. I'm actually going to tag this as fantasy, because I've got two ghostly visits and a haunted riding crop that tell me it is.

Second, if reaction to my giveaway post concerning Dancer is any indication (not to mention this book's Amazon page), there are some pretty basic schools of thought when it comes down to Shelley Peterson. Either you like her, or you just don't. I have no fond childhood nostalgia for this book, nor am I Canadian, so I really have to go with whatever impression comes to me first, and with Dancer it's that I think this book is mainly exceptionally strange.

Hilary James ('Mousie') is just sixteen when she wins The Fuller Trophy at the Royal Winter Fair jumping her horse, Dancer. Her triumph is rewarded with an invitation to perform in England for Queen Elizabeth, but she has also attracted the unwanted attention of the nefarious Samuel Owens who schemes to acquire Dancer for his niece, Sara. Rebuffed in his first attempt to buy the horse, Owens instructs his hired man, Chad Smith, to try to steal it. Mousie has a dream in which a beautiful blond horsewoman warns her of impending danger.

As far as summaries go, this one is horrible. However, it had no hope of being good, so I'm just going to give whoever wrote it points for trying to compound this book into four sentences.

Mousie is our heroine this time out, and the book opens up with her winning this Royal Winter Fair with her horse, Daring Dancer. Dancer is 17 hands high, a chestnut (12-year-old girls everywhere start squeeing in joy), a stallion, and acts like a human. By this I mean that he cannot be kept in a stall (he will jump out of it or knock the door down or both), chooses only to be ridden by Mousie, "bows" and basically acts like a showman in front of audiences without any command, and acts like a bodyguard (and by this I mean he will attack various intruders, but only to the point that he scares them or has them pinned to the ground). Saying that he is perfect is an understatement, because everything he does is so fantastic he's practically a mythological beast sent straight from Mt. Olympus. However, this is not all of the animal insanity. Mousie and Christine live on a farm surrounded by variously aware animals, such as the attack geese, goat, and terrier. They're all practically out of the movie Babe, only Babe, of course, was so much better.

Okay, so now you know what we're dealing with here. Mousie wins this show, getting the attention of Samuel Owens, who is this level of evil that is impossible to comprehend. He desperately wants the horse for his niece, Sara, and dispatches his trainer, Chad, to convince them to sell. Of course, they do not sell because Dancer is everything to Mousie, whose father has recently died and lives life as the social pariah of her school. Owens is not thrilled about this, so he tells Chad that he is going to get Dancer for him, no matter the cost. Chad accepts his fate and begins to plot.

Enter The Queen. This is Canada, and as some of us probably know, Canada just can't give up the pomp and circumstance of royalty. Thus they are a constitutional monarchy, meaning that some Canadians are crazy fangirls for The Queen (okay, that's not what it means...it's just a result). Shelley Peterson is clearly in this group of people, as are all of her characters. A letter from someone special arrives and informs her that The Queen is coming. OMGYAY! And not only that, Canada is going to put on some special show for her. OMGYAYAGAIN! And not only that, but Mousie has been selected to perform at this very show! Well, everyone about dies from the shock. Mousie and Dancer start to practice terribly hard, and when the show rolls around we are treated to Christine's rather ridiculously detailed description of it. Meanwhile, important stuff is going on with Mousie that we don't hear about until well after the fact. I have never encountered this sort of storytelling before, but it made me want to take the book and throw it at Shelley Peterson. Seriously, what? So when Mousie comes out on Dancer, and she and her saddle fly off of Dancer during the show, resulting in mass hysterics, you feel not only left out, but annoyed.

So because Dancer is a Black Stallion character, the only person who can take him home is Christine. That leaves Sandy, son of Rory, Christine's former high school flame, to go to the hospital with Mousie, who has a crush on Sandy like you would not believe. Convoluted? Maybe! Anyway, Christine leaves Dancer at the stable to go back to the hospital, relieving Sandy, who goes back to the farm with Rory to look over Dancer because Chad Smith is lurking around, being evil. When they get there, all the animals have been drugged and Dancer is gone. Sandy and Rory immediately head over the neighboring farm, conveniently owned by Owens (Rory, Christine, and Owens are all neighbors, of course), and find Dancer dyed black and drugged up in a locked barn. They escape and gallop back to Christine's. Eventually Christine and Mousie arrive home and have a good laugh because Dancer is black and wow, that's sort of amusing?

After this Rory tries to profess his true love to Christine, completely out of nowhere. He is unhappily married to the (evil, alcoholic) Helena, and is not yet divorced, but Christine doesn't know how much he wants to be divorced and turns him away. Meanwhile, Sandy has inadvertently caused a scene with Mousie by trying to take both her and the hated Sara Owens to school in the same car. How dare he! Mousie ignores Sandy for months, toiling in her friendless solitude. Or maybe she finally found a friend in these few months. I can't remember, because Shelley Peterson decided it wasn't important to show Mousie interacting with anyone, making me wonder if this friend is imaginary. Oh, yeah, and Chad Smith dies trying to euthanize Dancer. Mousie interrupts his attempt because some bleeding woman in a dream tells her to, causing Chad to fall over and accidentally stab himself in the chest with a hypodermic. Don't worry! We are assured he felt no pain, and Mousie gets over this trauma fairly quickly. Then Owens appears to inform Christine that he's a NICE GUY REALLY and she TOTALLY BELIEVES HIM because she is incomparably stupid because she is so sweet and nice. And Rory arrives to tell her all about his marriage and convince her that he'd like to date her when he's finally divorced. This pushiness, perhaps not shockingly, relieves her rather than sets her on edge. I'd be backing away slowly and/or screaming for help.

Enter The Queen. Because Queen Elizabeth just loves it when people fall off of seventeen hand horses, she invites Mousie to present Dancer to her court (or something) in England. OMGYAY! And then Mousie's grandmother sends them tons of new, fashionable clothes because they can't go to England wearing their farm rags. OMGYAYAGAIN! They wear their fashionable clothes to the airport, where they are treated to first class and all the wine and crackers they can conceivably eat. Then they are picked up in a limo and taken to the most quaint English cottage in the history of vine covered quaint English cottages. Everyone faints from sheer joy!

Dancer, of course, cannot live in their quaint surroundings, so he is relegated to some super awesome royal stables. There he still won't stay in his damned stall, freaking out one of the grooms to no end. At night, Mousie receives another dream from the bleeding lady, sending her straight to the barn, where Eddie, the unsettled groom, has roped Dancer and is freaking out. Mousie just tells Dancer to go to his stall, and he does, making Eddie look like an idiot. Only Christine then overhears Eddie nefariously plotting to steal Dancer, and wonders who could be behind this plot because surely it is not Samuel Owens! Surely! Christine has Eddie fired, thinking that's the end of it.

Enter The Queen. Mousie performs perfectly for Queen Elizabeth, and Dancer bows and rears to applause because he's that annoying. They win a pretty silver bowl. OMGYAY! Then they dance and eat with royal people and Mousie talks to The Queen. OMGYAYAGAIN! Then the royals indicate that they would really like Dancer for themselves, and Mousie goes into this long speech about how she couldn't possibly, so they relent and ask if they can breed him to their super fabulous mare. Everyone faints from sheer joy!

Then Rory and Helena get divorced and Rory speeds to England with Sandy so he can tell Christine about this. Sandy and Mousie nearly get kidnapped by Eddie, who surely couldn't be employed by Samuel Owens! Surely! Rory is not buying it that Christine keeps dealing out about Owens, not that this matters because it's fox hunt time! Sandy and Mousie get into a highly irritating conversation about the moral qualms of fox hunting, and Mousie is so for ripping those foxes to shreds but do not call her bloodthirsty, damn it! It's a totally non bloodthirsty sport! She thinks! Sandy backs down, because all horse story main characters are right and he has no hope of voicing an opinion. And then Mousie and Prince Charles fox hunt together and have a marvelous time until Eddie comes out of nowhere in an attempt to kill Dancer, but only winds up smacking his head into a tree and breaking his neck. He dies. Mousie and Prince Charles call for a doctor and then proceed with the marvelousness. And she helps some ghost get over her trauma of dying during a fox hunt. Eddie, apparently, will take her place.

Returning to Canada, time passes. Sandy and Mousie are dating, as are Rory and Christine. Samuel Owens is keeping a low profile. Sandy is learning how to ride and buys a horse so he can ride around with Mousie. Another royal letter arrives with pictures of the foal conceived between Dancer and the English Mare of Awesomeness. After about six to seven months of gestation, which makes me want to throw the book at Shelley Peterson again. Mousie dismisses the foal as scraggly and wet, wanting to hear nothing more of it because apparently she was expecting a seventeen hand, fully grown stallion to come popping out of that mare? Christine tries to explain that the foal is a day old, if that, and Mousie ignores her. Confused? You bet I was.

Then everyone goes on a ride, and Sandy's little sister falls. While Mousie is sitting with what's her name, somehow Samuel Owens comes out of nowhere, having been driven insane, and attacks Dancer with a knife. Dancer nearly dies, but of course he doesn't. Samuel Owens is hauled off, Mousie's dead dad appears to reminisce with Christine and Mousie, and then Christine and Rory get married. The end.

Okay.

Either you like Dancer for being the cute, slightly wacky fantasy it is or you dismiss it as unrealistic insanity. Here are some random thoughts (in which I don't rip it apart for being unrealistic, because really that's a waste of breath):

1. The story is invested in appearing innocent, making death practically comical or something easily risen above (Dancer's recovery that is mainly explained by his awesomeness, similar to Wonder's Pride's recovery through love in Pride's Last Race). The characters are black and white, no shades of gray to be found. Even Helena, who might have been good at some point in her life, is evil by the end of the book (drink and bitterness = evilness...remember this kids!).

2. Shelley Peterson is telling the story when she should be showing. That whole scene during The Queen's visit to Canada is the best example of this, as well as deus ex machina. Instead of showing us something relevant to whatever nonexistent plot she's trying to develop, she tells us what's going on in the show through Christine. You know what? I don't give a crap what's going on in the show. You want to know what I care about? THE DAMNED MAIN CHARACTER. Where the hell is she and what is she doing? Do I care about how much The Queen likes seeing some 8-year-old boy from Calgary rope a calf? Nope. Not at all. Then, after the hospital and the plan to dye and kidnap Dancer, Mousie tells us what happened when we were wasting our time with Christine during the show. How much do I care now? NONE AT ALL. Everyone's telling me what happened and jacking up the word count when we could have accomplished everything in half the time by just showing me what was going on with Mousie and Dancer backstage, explaining how she and the saddle fell off of Dancer in the first place.

3. There is no plot. Sure, there's (resolved immediately, yet unnecessarily drawn out) conflict. Sure, stuff happens. Sure, people do things. Mainly? It's about a year in the life of a perfect girl and her supernatural horse, in which they squee over the royals. I couldn't get into this because I ultimately saw no point to the story.

4. Relationships do not work like that! Seriously, no. Rory and Christine can get together. That's fine. Sandy and Mousie can have as much step-sibling sex as they want in the future. I don't care about that either. The whole relationship between Rory and Christine scared me, in total honesty. Rory lives a sham life with his uncaring wife, wants to get divorced but doesn't, randomly tries to tell Christine he loves her after ONE DAY of reminding each other that they exist after YEARS of separation (despite being neighbors!) and is rejected. Then they have a quick "yeah, I'm not happy and want to get divorced" discussion that lasts all of two seconds, he gets divorced, and is (practically the next day!) proposing to Christine? The hell? Who relates to anyone that way and could be called fairly normal by most people? A lot of this book can be chalked up to impatience on the part of the author, I think. This is not good, because it makes the book so much more wacky.

So that's a brief overview of my opinion. It's obviously an unrealistic story, so much so you can't even point that out as a reason to dislike it. This story totally owns up to the fact that it's unrealistic, so you can feel free to like it for its fantasy. Or you can dislike if for some of the facts which I have presented here, realism aside. Or you can dislike it for being totally and unabashedly unrealistic. Whatever you like.

Ruby: I may or may not have picked this book up because of the cover.

Ruby
by Francesca Lia Block and Carmen Staton
Published: 2007

I realize I'm stretching here, but why not?

From the beloved author of Necklace of Kisses comes a modern-day fairy tale of a willful and intuitive heroine and a world of shocking realism and transcendent magic.

Francesca Lia Block, this time with co-writer Carmen Staton, introduces readers to Ruby, a Midwestern girl named for the jewel that is believed to ward off evil spirits. Ruby's special gift is a sixth sense that makes her at one with nature and gives her the ability to know her own destiny.

After growing up in an abusive family, Ruby escapes to Los Angeles and learns of her soulmate -- Orion -- a British actor. She travels to England, where she works at a potions and herbs shop, and through a series of coincidental circumstances, ends up nursing Orion back to health without confessing that she has been on a quest to find him all along. But just when she thinks her dream is becoming a reality, Ruby is stopped in her tracks by the violent demons of her past. Only by facing the darkness together can she and Orion finally fulfill their destiny.

As with Necklace of Kisses, Block, here with Staton, breaks the mold. In Ruby, readers will find a story about the power of our minds to overcome the past and ultimately change the course of our lives.

This is a pretty nifty, slightly insane book. It is, essentially, this: Ruby comes from an abusive background, sees Troy on DVD, develops an obsession with Orlando Bloom, travels to England to surreptitiously gain the trust of his family, and somehow cause him to fall in love with her as she battles the demons of her past. All with Francesca Lia Block's edgy fairy tale qualities spun throughout.

No, really.

Only it's not ever that easy. Although, I really do think Orion is Orlando Bloom, and I will now refer to him as such. Ruby goes to England and seeks out Orlando not because she's obsessed with him in a creepy fangirl way, but because she just happens to know a few things and why not her. I don't know whether to be amused by the simplicity of this idea, or take it up as my new life motto. Why not me? Indeed. Why not. Due to fiction's cute little conveniences, Ruby gets a job at the magic shop that Orlando's mother owns, and Ruby starts coming over to Orlando's parents' house for dinner, only Orlando is never there. Cruel fates. But fiction has to go be convenient again and reveal that Orlando has been there all the time, he's just in seclusion because he fell off of his horse and apparently broke his back in ways backs have never been broken. He's more or less paralyzed, but because the writing style isn't exactly explicit you're left to assume that.

Ruby has some ideas on how to fix this, so she magics him into wellness (and full body function) using paste and water. Magic paste and water! Orlando is all patched up and ready to go again. He takes a liking to Ruby, as we all knew he would, and eventually they decide to go riding together because he really wants to get back on his horse, Day. Simple name. I'm tempted to like it, if Day's brother didn't happen to be Night. Seriously, that wasn't so hot. Neither is the angry temper Night casually sheds upon meeting Ruby (only this is acceptable because Ruby's sixth sense is her connection with animals and so forth, and in this world it's actually possible). Nor is it that great when Ruby randomly says, "I'll take a Western saddle please" like she's ordering ice cream. And she is in England. I'm not sure how likely it is to just walk into a stable in England and say, "Western saddle here!" without having someone look at you like you're an asshole. Anyway, Ruby rides with Orlando Bloom through the forest and he shows her where he fell and why he fell (that guy with the leaves on his face, and that giant stag...totally would have freaked a horse out). Eventually they return to the stable and Orlando Bloom informs her that he has a new movie, etc. They have sex, Ruby agonizes over the fact that she's basically built all of this on a lie, so she writes a book about her life (this stunned me a little, because she kept saying she'd use this book as a cover for why she's really there, and I had no idea she was actually writing it in the end) and what led her to England and sends it to Orlando just as she leaves to go back to the States because her father died.

I can't even get into her father. That was a messed up situation that you know is horribly messed up all the way to the point where you're wincing and thinking "that's messed up" and Ruby is justified when she admits being scared out of her mind at the possibility that this guy would come back to haunt her (because in this world, ghosts are possible). Orlando comes back to help her through this experience, and her dad never comes back from the dead. Ruby is successfully over the trauma, and Orlando still loves her despite all that weirdness. Although I guess Orlando is used to it, what with his mom sort of being a witch or something.

The strength of the story isn't Orlando, or Ruby's trip to England to find Orlando, but the backstory with her family. It's...just really messed up. You want her to find the ability to move on and become a new person and shed all of that crap. It's also beautifully told in a minimal sort of way. A little too short, and you sort of don't care about Orlando given that he's hardly there and not nearly as important as the rest of the story. I liked it, despite some shortcomings.

And yes, it's so obviously Orlando Bloom.

I'm starting to wonder if any Thoroughbred's pedigree is correct at this point.

Ride a Dark Horse
A "Gusty" McCaw Mystery
by Lynn Hall
1987

"Gusty" McCaw has a life many teenage girls can only dream of. Living at Tradition Farm gives her independence and the chance to work with the horses she loves so much. But her happiness is shattered when her father is killed in an accident that looks very much like murder. Then Gusty discovers that another horse is being bred in place of Tradition's valuable prize stud, Ambassador, and she realizes that something suspicious -- and dangerous -- is going on at Tradition Farm. Which horse is being switched with Ambassador for breedings and why? And how does her father's shameful death fit into the puzzle?

Gusty is determined to uncover Tradition's dark secret, but someone is equally determined that Gusty never reveal her knowledge and will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to keep her quiet. Stripped of her good name, unable to trust anyone, Gusty must solve the mystery alone, using only her sharp wits and her courage.

I like Lynn Hall, mainly because I feel she creates interesting main characters that seem firmly grounded in reality rather than flitting off in some sentimental "OMG did you just call that horse an animal?" mentality. Ride a Dark Horse definitely exhibits one of these characters. Gusty McCaw was practically born and bred on a horse farm, and she has no special horses that only respond to her attention, or crazy love works miracles policy. What Gusty does share with most of her other horse book main characters is the determination factor, which comes in handy for her as she winds up trying to avoid bodily harm while attempting to get her life back.

The deal is that Gusty's dad is recently dead, and Gusty is all alone in the world except for her connections at Tradition Farm. She's sitting outside at night and sees lights on in the breeding shed. This is typical, as Ambassador usually does his breedings at night. While this is happening she follows her dog to the stud barn and sees Ambassador still in his stall, making a mystery out of what was going on in the breeding shed. Later she discovers that the owner's riding horse, a stallion named Toby, would look like Ambassador if he was less fat. Gusty, because she's new at this whole suspicion thing, asks the stud manager, Jackson, why Ambassador was in his stall when they were in the breeding shed, and before she knows it she's been fired for selling information to other farms.

Gusty makes the executive decision to get her job back, so she goes on the hunt for clues about this whole stallion switch thing. A day in a library leads her to a farm called Wood Hill, which had a few stallions before a fire put a stop to that. While there she manages to make a few enemies, a few friends, and then, because of the enemies, she's fired for not being straight about who she is when she presented herself for a job. By that point, she's been asking questions there also about this former Wood Hill stallion, American Express. It turns out that one of the grooms is the nephew of someone at Tradition, creating a link that Gusty can't ignore. The groom realizes this, and decides to beat up Gusty, who runs out of there afterward. By this point, she realizes that Toby and American Express are the same horse and they're using Toby as a stand in for Ambassador.

She calls up the Jockey Club in hysterics, but the guy on the phone doesn't exactly sound like he believes her, so she goes into more hysterics and heads to Tradition to find the proof she needs: a little white dot on Toby's eye. When she gets there, the groom from before knocks her out and hog ties her in the breeding shed, where he has a meeting with his partner in crime, a rider from Tradition called R.B. Then Jackson comes along and tells them that he's had enough of this and they can't just murder poor Gusty. The boys don't like this, and all hell breaks loose just as the cops get there and the Jockey Club guy, Theo, takes Gusty to the hospital.

So, these stud switch plots never seem to have a realistic reason behind them, and I was interested to see how Lynn Hall explains this whole thing. The explanation? LOVE. Jackson was in love with the owner lady, who bought Ambassador after her husband died, only to have the stallion be a dud. Jackson loved her from afar to the point that he decided that they needed to switch out Ambassador for a stud more likely to be fantastic, but not too fantastic. Unfortunately, the stud they stole was way fantastic and everyone started to blackmail eachother to the point that, when Gusty's dad was transferred to the stud barn, R.B. had to spike his soda with vodka in attempts to get him to go along with the plot. Her dad was an alcoholic, so they hoped he'd just be too drunk to deal with anything and eventually would get fired. Only he fell over and died. Oops.

Tradition Farm folds, the appropriate parties go to jail, and Gusty is offered a job with the Jockey Club as an undercover agent of sorts. Gusty decides to take the job because she's (shockingly...like, I turned my head and squinted at this) got a huge crush on Theo, who is, like, forty. I was completely disturbed by this revelation, and then the book quickly ended, leaving me feeling a little uncomfortable.

But, you know, I still like Lynn Hall.

The tale of the Gary Stu and the equine Jesus continues...

Green Jasper
Book 2 of the de Granville Trilogy
by K.M. Grant

If this blog is indicative of anything, it's that I'm a glutton for punishment. After reading Blood Red Horse, I had to eventually land on its sequel, Green Jasper. The first book was a dragging, politically correct, saga mixing a horse story up with the Crusades. This didn't end well. In fact, it was pretty ridiculous. Green Jasper is little better in terms of character development, but Will is still a freakish Gary Stu, Hosanna is still the equine vision of perfection, and those that are not perfect are horribly flawed, consistently wrong, or EVIL.

Is it foolish to think that one boy and a blood red horse can save a fair maiden and the throne of England?

Will and Gavin de Granville have come back from the crusade older, braver, and definitely wiser.

Ellie has been longing for their return. But they’ve changed. And home is almost as dangerous as the war they’ve just left.

The king is missing. The country is in turmoil. And some men would do anything for power. What will two brothers risk for the woman they both love and the king they have both sworn to protect and serve? In the second book of the de Granville trilogy, Will and Gavin find their family – and all of England – in serious peril.

While it is my opinion that K.M. Grant has some work to do, characterization wise, she does do two things that receive high praise from me in Green Jasper: her plot is less sprawling, and Will is forced to contain his perfection to a dungeon for the majority of this book. Therefore everything he did was not only perfect, it was rather pointless to spend my time on, so I could skim over him rather easily and get back to Gavin, who continues to be awesome.

It is Valentine's Day, 1193. Gavin and Ellie are going to get married, but there is underlying tension because Ellie doesn't really realize that she's in love with him and Gavin is convinced that she's in love with Will, and Will is too busy paying attention to his horse to realize that he's in love with Ellie. It's one of those evil love triangles in which you just want to slap them all. Actually, I want to slap Will all the time, which is why I was so happy to discover how long he spends in the aforementioned dungeon. Anyway, de Scabious, the evil guy from the first book, crashes the wedding and steals Ellie, ripping the tension open between the two brothers. Will wants to go after de Scabious immediately and Gavin wants to wait until they know for sure if Richard is dead or alive or what. The important thing to remember is that John is around, trying to convince the country that Richard is dead so he can be crowned king in his place.

Will, because he is thankfully sort of stupid in this book, although his stupidity is painted as perfection, irritatingly, decides to go after Ellie with his squire, completely underestimating de Scabious's position, and gets himself captured almost immediately. This is Will's one fault: impatience. It's really too bad it never got him killed. It really should have, looking back on it. Gavin stays back at the castle, waiting for his moment to be awesome while his brother wanders around in a prison cell and has these conversations with a little boy that was probably important, leading to his escape, only I obviously don't care about Will, so I ignored all of that.

Meanwhile, Kamil is back, bringing a letter to England from Richard, conveniently enough. Kamil eventually comes across Gavin, gives him the seal in exchange for Hosanna, and then they go rescue Ellie and Will, who at that point has managed to do something that was probably important, only obviously I was trying to ignore his presence. Gavin and Kamil simply walk right into de Scabious's lair, and eventually Ellie loses it and smacks de Scabious around, so he loses it and goes to stab her, and Gavin, because he's awesome, shoves her out of the way and is killed. Ellie kisses him before he dies and realizes she's in love with him right when Will, with his irritating perfection, rides in and saves the day. Blah blah blah. The book ends with Ellie telling Will she's going to Germany to deliver the ransom for the king with him, whether he likes it or not, and then she goes over to sit at Gavin's grave and tells it that Gavin has her faith, which she'll probably get over by the next book, when mutual perfection means she'll have to marry Will and bear his ridiculously perfect children.

So now that Gavin is dead, I am less than eager to move on to the last book of this trilogy, Blaze of Silver. I can only hope that Gavin's awesomeness transfers to Kamil, because Will and Hosanna, who continues to be everyone's equine Jesus, do not amuse me.

It's another book I must decline ripping to shreds.

The Perfect Distance: A Novel
by Kim Ablon Whitney
Published: 2005

Sometimes Francie Martinez feels like she's hovering between two worlds. Her father is Mexican, and her mother -- although she doesn't really count -- is American. Francie spends hours mucking stalls with the other Mexican grooms, but when she mounts her horse, Tobey, she is a determined, talented rider, just like any of the other girls at West Hills. At school, she's known as "the horse girl," but in the ring (and to Rob, one of the best trainers in the country), she's not the girl who wins -- Tara is.

Now Francie is ready to secure a place for herself in a world where she knows she belongs. It's always been her dream to win the Maclay Finals in New York City, and this year -- her last year -- she has to win. Francie can't imagine her life without horses; she's serious about riding, and this is her final chance to prove it to Rob (who is so busy praising Tara that he barely notices her), to her father (who has been collecting college brochures for the past six months), and to Tara (who's sure she's going to win). And then there's the new boy, Colby, who is becoming a distraction just when Francie needs to focus more than ever.

In this deftly told coming-of-age story by the author of the critically acclaimed See You Down the Road, Francie faces more than the ring as she tries to figure out what kind of rider -- and person -- she wants to be.

You know, horse books seem to have fashioned a bad reputation for themselves. They're formulaic, and if you read this blog on any sort of regular basis the formula has probably slapped you in the face pretty much every day you've read it: Amazing girl or boy. Amazing horse. Snobby antagonist. Sudden drama. Win win win! It just goes around and around like a vicious cycle of ickiness. This is probably why I can get so, um, vitriolic here. Someone write something new. It's all I'm really asking.

It's not surprising that horse books have a hard road to hoe when it comes to being taken seriously. Really, it's to the point where I think most people write horse books off as being general wish fulfillment fantasies aimed toward the female gender. People don't take this seriously, and that's fine really, because occasionally books like The Perfect Distance come along and blow me away.

Francie Martinez is a groom at West Hills, one of the best places to train in the country. She's also a rider, but the distinction is her father is the West Hills barn manager, with absolutely no money to pay for the kind of training one needs to make it to the Maclay Finals and onward to Grand Prix. Francie is good, but she's not as good as Tara, the great West Hills hope for their trainer, Rob. Rob is the equestrian version of God, and Francie spends most of her lessons scrambling for his attention the way he lavishes it on Tara.

It's pretty apparent straight off that Francie isn't exactly comfortable in her skin. Literally and figuratively. She's half Mexican, and she bluntly points out that there are no Hispanic riders in America. To make matters worse, there's the obvious distinction between groom and rider. Francie isn't a working student, and whenever she tries to break out of her confines to interact with Colby (who is gorgeous and funny and rich and a good rider in his own right) her father slaps her down because he's been there and done that with her nonexistent mother, and look where that wound up. She's having a hard time balancing being both groom and rider, and people like Tara make the distinction obvious whenever they can.

Then there's school. Francie is a public school kid, whereas the other kids at West Hills are either privately tutored (her best friend, Katie, and Colby) or they dropped out to focus on riding (Tara). But even at school, Francie has a hard time fitting in. She's always focused on riding and school work, therefore she's not around, leaving her very existence mostly a mystery to the rest of the local kids. This leaves Francie as eager to please, and a basket case when she's put on the spot. It's shocking she can handle the ordeals of a normal day, much less the pressures of a show.

Despite these things, it's obvious that Francie is a good rider, and she's justified in dreaming of beating Tara in the Maclay Finals. But the book is more than this. Unlike just about every other book involving girls, horses, show jumping, and the mention of Olympic dreams, it doesn't end like you expect, and it manages to hit a completely different note than the scores of other books that have meagerly tried and miserably failed at the same point. It makes the kind of note that doesn't blatantly say: it doesn't matter what personal growth this character makes because she's going to win anyway because she's irritatingly perfect and you can be too!

And that...that's all I really want, folks.

So you've obviously figured out by now that I'm not going to recap this whole book and I'm not going to really give up the ending or much of the plot. All I can say at this point is to go find it and read it. You'll be happy you did.

Blood Red Horse: In which I link to Wikipedia a lot.

Blood Red Horse
by K.M. Grant
Book One of the de Granville Trilogy
Published: 2004

So, I liked the movie Kingdom of Heaven. Orlando Bloom is pretty, and there were all of these gorgeous horses and that's pretty much all you need to sell me on something. Plus, had they spun that movie in a slightly different direction it could have very easily become The Black Stallion. Only during the Crusades. How awesome would that have been? So when I come across Blood Red Horse, which is essentially boy and horse go to the Crusades, naturally I'm beyond happy to give this a try.

Two Boys. One girl. The adventure of a lifetime.

You need three things to become a brave and noble knight:

A warhorse.
A fair maiden.
A just cause.

Will has a horse—a small chestnut stallion with a white blaze in his brow. Ellie is a fair maiden, but she’s supposed to marry Will’s older brother, Gavin. And as for the cause, King Richard is calling for a Crusade. The Knights of England must go to the Holy Land to fight. Will and Gavin will go. Blood will be shed. Lives will be taken. But through it all, two things will be constant—Ellie, and a blood-red horse called Hosanna. . . .

Yes, this is Kingdom of Heaven meets The Black Stallion. Only the stallion is red, and they mention this repeatedly. Right down to how the actual color of blood clashes with the stallion's natural red color, which would then bring into question the title of the book...but whatever. The Blood Red Horse takes place between 1185 and 1193, before and during Richard the Lionheart's stint with the Crusades. So the events of Kingdom of Heaven actually very conveniently occur right before the events of this book. But for simplicity's sake, we'll start at the beginning, in 1185, when Will, Gavin and Ellie are all annoying youngsters.

In 1185 everyone is happy. Gavin is sixteen and basically an asshole. William is 12 and pretty much perfect. Ellie is ten and plays the orphaned, absurdly rich, tomboy distant cousin to the two boys. Because Ellie is extremely rich, Thomas de Granville (father of the boys) intends to marry her off to Gavin, increasing the wealth of the already wealthy family. It's right around time for William to get his first war horse. Or Great Horse. Or destrier or whatever these things are called. Apparently these weren't draft types, so I just imagine a fairly big boned horse and leave it at that. Because Gavin has had his war horse for a while, a big bay called Montlouis, Will is eager to get his own big bay so he can be important and stop this being tossed in the water trough business that he brother likes to do occasionally. Catching his dad on a good day, Thomas says he can go down to the stud and pick himself a horse. Will goes with full intentions of getting another Montlouis, but instead he finds the son of his riding mare, a smaller destrier called Hosanna. Sparks, as you can imagine, fly. I guess chestnuts match just as well with twelve-year-old boys as they do with girls, because William's interest immediately turns to Hosanna and before you know it he's leading him back to the castle or whatnot.

Everyone is all "OMG this horse is tiny!" but William is not to be dissuaded. Hosanna is the perfect equine, and soon wins everyone over. He gallops like he's floating, he never tires, he jumps, he shocks and awes, and, more importantly, he makes Montlouis look all unimpressive and stuff. Yes, that's right. UNIMPRESSIVE.

Time drags by. At some point, Gavin randomly has a mental break and needs Hosanna in order to partake in a fox hunt that apparently lasts from one side of England to another. Seriously, I have no idea what came over Gavin here, because it's not explained all that well, but he loses it and tears England up with Hosanna in search of foxes. While he catches his second fox, he's busy flinging it around and screaming his head off while Hosanna literally collapses right next to him. Gavin shows almost no remorse over this because he's "just a horse," while everyone else has a fit because Hosanna is everyone's equine Jesus. Thomas decides to send Gavin "to the north" and Ellie is all disgusted with him, throwing this little dog statue he made at him and telling him to shove it (or something to that effect...it was 1185, after all). You see, Gavin quickly becomes the most interesting character in this book, as he is flawed and horrible for the majority of it. Naturally I began to root pretty hard for him, as William became more and more perfect to a painful point somewhere during the Crusades. So Gavin has fucked up royally and Hosanna is beyond help, so he's sent to live with the monks for a while.

I could get into this, but I won't. Essentially, one of the monks begins to treat the horse and by some divine coincidence Hosanna lives. He's returned to William, having converted a few monks from Christianity and into worshiping at his hooves. Basically. Then everyone goes to the Crusades, and they're happy to go. Everyone is sporting that classic YAY!WAR!OMG! thing before it inevitably turns horribly, horribly wrong. You know it will. It's the Crusades. People didn't go there and die of fevers and turn to cannibalism because it was fun. You'd think people would learn, but no. YAY!WAR!OMG!

So Gavin and Ellie are betrothed, confusing the hell out of poor little William, but he really shouldn't be that worried because I'm convinced that later on Gavin dies and William and Ellie get married and have fantastic children who ride Hosanna's fantastic foals. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Everyone has extremely unsatisfactory farewells, and Ellie is left alone at the castle and all the strapping men and boys ride off for the Crusades with Richard.

Predictably, everything starts to suck pretty hard, pretty soon. The voyage to the Holy Land takes a year, about half of their entourage die, nearly half of their horses die, and when they finally get to Acre their father, predictably, dies. After this event, Gavin and William have a collective hissy fit and decide that OMG! they hate Muslims! Or something like that. It makes little sense considering their father died of fever, and I'm not altogether sure he even saw battle. Well, anyway. They go take over Acre and that killing of 3,000 captives happens because Saladin won't pay the ransom. When this happens we get our second piece of evidence that Hosanna is actually Jesus: he refuses to move forward when all the knights charge the captives and slaughter them mercilessly in the desert. He just won't go. William gets so pissed off that he does his one (and only) act of imperfection: he smacks the horse on the neck with his sword. However, because of the horse, William is saved from the one act that would have tainted his gary stuness. So, honestly, I don't know what to think about all of this.

Meanwhile we have Kamil. Kamil is a poor, male, Muslim version of Will. He works for Saladin, and he's all vengeful because some Christian knight with a birthmark killed his dad. So Kamil is a bloodthirsty jackass. Essentially, he is Gavin and William combined, up until the end of the book, when he's basically a Muslim version of William. (If you are following me right now, I am shocked.) OKAY, so Kamil wants to kill lots of Christians while Saladin is all "it is right and honorable to not be cruel and blah blah blah." Kamil wants blood, and he wants it now. Then he goes and finds his father's killer and kills that guy's son, but "doesn't know why." Come on, really? Kamil was intolerable for a lot of the book, actually.

Anyway, stuff happens. Gavin whores around, and William is all "I am pure! Do not taint me with your sluts!" Basically. Gavin mocks him and whores around some more. Ellie, meanwhile, is learning to read and write, despite the abbot of the community insisting that women are worthless and should not learn anything because that's when society will decline and fall or something to that effect. Except there's some monk/priest or someone who doesn't think so and helps her anyway, resulting in hysterics and general 1100s craziness about inappropriate behavior, priests, and rich girls potentially getting it on in the middle of the forest. No, nothing actually happened in the forest, but Thomas's original helper guy is plotting to take over while everyone is away in the Holy Land, and he'd really like Ellie's money, so he's maneuvering to put himself in Gavin's place. The plan is to make Ellie look like a whore, step in to marry her (because surely Gavin won't, despite her money, which makes it sort of obvious what evil guy is doing, but whatever because everyone is an idiot and believes him, not Ellie, because Ellie has female private parts) and then rule all of the de Granville property. Ellie is not thrilled.

So the Crusades are, like, still going. They continue and continue. Gavin loses an arm, spurring him out of his asshole, whorish ways and into good, brotherly ways. Hosanna is stolen by Kamil, who has some crisis of faith and gets recruited by The Old Man Of The Mountain, whom I guess is a middle ages version of Osama bin Laden. The Old Man wants to kill Saladin, who has figured out this plot way in advance, making Kamil look like a moron. This all eventually comes to a point at Jaffa, during yet another battle, where Saladin has had enough of this and wants to fight Richard "to the death" despite the fact that this is obviously going to go nowhere again. Richard arrives at Jaffa with enough force to take the city back, but no horses, so Saladin is all wonderful and gives him horses. Saladin makes Kamil hand over Hosanna as payback for being an idiot. Then they all fight, and this culminates in Richard riding Hosanna around and accidentally getting the horse shot with an arrow.

Apparently once the king's horse is felled the battle ends? Or something? Or this is the third piece of proof we need concerning Hosanna actually being Jesus. Because Hosanna is shot with an arrow and everything comes to a standstill. We're talking about a giant battlefield, here. Not only does this happen, but Kamil, Richard, Gavin and William all rush up to the horse, throw religion aside and are all OMG! the pretty pony is all injured! I am not kidding. So they work together to try to save the horse, and eventually this includes William suggesting they figure out where Mecca is and pray to Mecca. I am not even kidding. Richard's all to hell with that, and walks off. But they all pray to Mecca for the horse's sake, and then miraculously Hosanna gets up and they usher the horse a full mile back to Jaffa. And then they send some groom to Saladin to ask for supplies to help save Hosanna, and he sends supplies.

So everyone collectively gets over their Muslim/Christian issues to save Hosanna. Hosanna is saved, and everyone has religious breakthroughs, mostly everyone visits Jerusalem on pilgrimage, some plot points are seeded for the sequel with Kamil coming to England, and then everyone goes home to learn that Richard has been captured by Leopold V. And that Richard randomly makes William the Earl of something, which effectively makes him outrank Gavin, the count of their original castle, Hartslove. Ellie greets them all and decides that Gavin really does need her, seeing as he only has one arm, and he's confused because he thinks she really loves William more, but she doesn't appear to be outwardly concerned about this. It ends on a good note, but surely more insanity is likely to happen, what with Ellie's would-be-almost-second betrothed running around trying to usurp power, and seeing as how Richard is in Austria against his will and all. More adventures to come, I'm sure.

• Hosanna is everyone's savior in this book. Not only does everyone care about his health and general well being, they touch his forehead for good luck, and they include him in their random battle and religious mantras. Like: "For God, the King, and Hosanna." It's weird. Really, very weird.
  

• Show, not tell. Seriously, seriously violated here. Most of this book was basically: "And this happened, and this happened, and while this happened, this had happened, and he said something about this, but everyone knew that this would happen if this didn't and this did." Because of this, all the action is glossed over and makes everyone in the book a stereotype. William is the perfect main character who randomly gets everything without trying, Hosanna is the main character's perfect horse. Ellie is the spunky girl they all leave behind, who has to forge onward by herself. Kamil is the burned Inigo Montoya character who learns that vengeance isn't as great as peace. Gavin is the jackass who pays for his sins and is rewarded with Ellie (maybe, I'm still not convinced he's getting a happy ending there). All other horses are not as good as Hosanna (at all). All evil or slightly evil characters are obvious and are always slinking places. It's all remarkably two dimensional. Actually, it's probably the most two dimensional book I've ever read.
  

• Mary Sues. Oh, man. William and Hosanna make Ashleigh and Wonder look like giant flaws in the face of horse related literature by comparison.
  

• Gavin. Gavin was awesome because he was literally the only character who showed any development whatsoever. Kamil...sort of showed development, but not at all in the way Gavin did. So I pick Gavin. I mean, after suffering through how randomly fantastic and, therefore, boring William was all the time, I have to pick Gavin.

This was a good idea for a book. I wanted to like it. Unfortunately, you know, it just wasn't great. It was sort of mediocre. It was too politically correct and shoved too much time (eight years) in 277 pages and no one was fully developed and Hosanna was way too awesome to be real. I think the Black Stallion was more realistic, and that should be saying something. However, I'm going to read the rest of the trilogy. Just because.

Book Rec: Another Kind of Cowboy

Another Kind of Cowboy
by Susan Juby
Published: 2007

I'll state first that I liked this book. If ever there was a book deserving of a serious recommendation, this is that book. In fact, I'm not sure I can come up with a suitably snarky review for the blog, and I don't really even want to give up spoilers. What is wrong with me?

Well. Here's the summary:

For Alex Ford, dressage is an oasis. In the stable, he can slip into his riding pants, shed the macho cowboy image, and feel like himself for a change.

For Cleo O'Shea, dressage is a fresh start. She's got a new boarding school, absentee parents, and, best of all, no one to remember her past. . . .

They're an unlikely pair. Cleo's looking for love, but Alex has a secret he's not ready to give up, and a flirtation with Cleo is the last thing on his mind. But you can't find romance before you know real friendship, and sometimes the last person you'd ever think of as a friend ends up being the one you need the most.

If this was a Thoroughbred book, Christina would be having an aneurysm. The whole thing is about dressage, obviously. Alex has been obsessed with it since he was a kid, and Cleo spent her first jumping lesson sobbing. I appreciated that, actually.

The brief rundown is this: we've got two main characters. The book skips around between Alex and Cleo, telling Alex's story in third person and Cleo's story in first person. It sounds a little weird, until you start reading it. They're both sixteen. They both live in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, Alex because he's always lived there and Cleo because she was sent to a girl's boarding school centered in equestrian sports. Cleo is filthy rich because her parents are movie producers/directors, and thus leave her alone for vast quantities of time while they're off shooting movies in exotic locales. Alex's mom abandoned his family and his dad is a budding alcoholic living in an RV in front of their house. He's got an aunt and two sisters, twins, making sure things get done rather slowly around the house as Alex's dad spends all his time sleeping with a balding woman who is the island's most prolific realtor because her face is most commonly seen plastered all over areas destined to become strip malls.

Of course, they've got problems. Alex is struggling with his sexuality, which is to say he's a sixteen-year-old gay kid and horrified by the idea of having to tell anyone. Cleo is rich and selfish and lazy, but she's also dealing with the fact that her parents basically dumped her in Vancouver when her actions lead to their massive house in L.A. being stripped of all its expensive televisions, vases, and other possessions. She has no friends, and because she rides dressage and most of the girls at the school don't, that leaves her with one other girl who is a friend by proximity.

They both have horses. Cleo's parents bought her a ridiculously expensive and talented mare called Tandava. Alex has an elderly paint named Turnip that his dad won in a poker game. In a twist of fate, they both start training with Ivan and Fergus, dressage coaches recently retired to the area. Initially Cleo is interested in Alex, but when she tries to kiss him he just winds up screaming "gay!" at her.

And other things happen. I'm actually not inclined to spoil this book, because it's actually good. In the many books I've read for this blog (sure, many of them were Thoroughbred books, but they damn well count) I have learned that stumbling across a good horse-themed book is a miracle, so I'm treasuring this moment. Another Kind of Cowboy is a fun story. It's well-written and the characters are hilarious in a realistic way. It even makes dressage sound interesting. You'll probably like it. So run over to the library or the bookstore and grab a copy. Posthaste. As in now. Go.

You can't tame what wants to run into a tornado and die.

Taming the Star Runner
by S.E. Hinton

As requested by Kerry, I decided to pick up Taming the Star Runner. It's by S.E. Hinton, who is using the ever popular replace your first name with initials so readers won't know you're a woman method, because little boys everywhere are too afraid to pick up books written by women because it's not manly to read books written by women. What's with that, little boys?

Well, anyway. You too can request a book for us to read. It's very simple. Just run over to the requests page and ask away to your heart's delight. We're slowly, but surely, trying to comply with the demand here at the Whitebrook Farm Blog.

Travis is the epitome of cool, especially when he's in trouble. But when he's sent to stay on his uncle's ranch, he finds that his tough attitude doesn't make him any friends and his city survival skills are no match for the unforgiving land around him.

He does find friendship of a sort with Casey, who runs a riding school at the ranch. She's the bravest person Travis has ever met. She's crazy enough to try to tame the Star Runner, her beautiful, dangerous horse that's always on edge, about to explode. It's clear to Travis that he and the Star Runner are two of a kind -- wild creatures not meant to be tamed.

This blurb is going along normally until that last sentence, when whoever wrote this summary decided to smack me in the face with the very obvious fact that the Star Runner and Travis are two of a kind. Hey, summary writer, I kind of got that to begin with. You could have said something else instead, like, how Travis learns that it's not okay to be a narcissistic asshole, but no, we just get a promise that he's going to remain "wild" for the entirety of the book.

Okay, everybody, meet Travis. Travis is a troubled sixteen-year-old kid who wants to be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald. Basically, this means that Travis is a prick. Notice how I could have said that Travis aims to rise above his problems and become the next Great American Writer before succumbing to alcohol and then collapsing at a relatively young age. No, Travis is just a prick. You see that "epitome of cool" line at the beginning of the summary? Travis genuinely believes this.

So the deal here is that Travis has this stepfather, Stan. Stan is your typical evil stepparent. He slaps around Travis's mom, refuses to have any photo of Travis's dead dad in the house, and randomly burned some of Travis's manuscripts because he thought it was clutter and, of course, you burn clutter. In front of your stepson. Of course you do. So, unnaturally evil Stan basically sets himself up for a fight, and Travis doesn't hold back, which lands him in jail. When he gets out, his mom decides to defuse the situation by sending Travis to her dead husband's brother's ranch in Oklahoma for the school year.

In Oklahoma, Travis is plagued by suddenly not being cool and not being able to drink whiskey at home. Life is so, so hard. He's also forced to hang out with girls all the time, because Ken, the uncle, has a barn that he leases out to Casey, our resident horse loving girl. Casey is trying to figure out this Star Runner horse, who is not wild so much as mean. Travis describes Casey as good-looking, if she were a guy. I don't know what to take from this. There's also a hoard of other girls -- Kristen, Kelsey, Jennifer, and Robyn. Jennifer is the pretty one, and Robyn is the insane "fat one." By insane, I mean she spends most of her time snorting coke and walking around shirtless because she's "good at taking her clothes off" because she's been strip searched so often.

So the book continues on about how Travis thinks he's cool and how everyone in Oklahoma doesn't understand his coolness. Then he gets the notice that his book is being accepted by a publisher, and he decides it's time to party until he gets sick. Being sixteen, this would be a problem. Fortunately for Travis, Ken keeps some Crown Royal around and he more or less downs that and manages to slip unnoticed into a bar that you get the distinct impression isn't cool enough for Travis (at least, according to him). Only then the owner finds out he's not 21 and flips out and fires the bouncer and the bouncer kicks the living crap out of Travis. All the while Travis is drunk and convinced that he'd be able to "take" the bouncer if he was not drunk. However, seeing as how I once worked with a bouncer, I really highly...HIGHLY...doubt that this is possible. I also dislike this whole scene. Sure, no one likes underage kids in bars because mainly they're annoying, but no owner is going to flip out to that degree. Just escort the kid to the sidewalk and get on with your life. Who the hell cares?

Anyway, Ken picks Travis up and Travis is all self-important about being drunk while Ken is not impressed. Neither am I, really. Later on, Travis, through his hung over haze, kills a water moccasin and earns Casey's respect in doing so, only then he hears from his mom via phone that evil Stan is up to no good and wants to read Travis's book before they sign any contracts. You see, he wants to make sure he's not in the book. Travis flips and throws the phone, narrowly missing Ken's toddler. Ken briefly thinks about kicking Travis out because Ken's soon-to-be-ex-wife doesn't like it when phones are thrown at her toddler. Travis cries, and all is well because when main characters cry everyone seems to magically understand their plight.

At this point, the editor from the publishing house comes along and gets Travis talking about books and reading and whoa if that wasn't fun for Travis and boring for me. Travis admits that he tried to read a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald that involved sipping sherry and he didn't get it, giving all readers a chance to feel superior to Travis. The editor talks about cleaning up the language in his book a little and end scene. Travis skips along, thrilled that he's being published. His mom takes back what Stan said about reading the book, and all is well.

But then there's this horse show that goes on and on forever. The Star Runner dumps Casey and she cracks a rib, but rides the next day and wins, of course. Travis takes this opportunity to kiss her, because he randomly fell in love with her after he decided she was good-looking if she was a guy. Casey discourages any relationship, but acknowledges that Travis somehow knows her better than anyone. They are so alike...and...stuff.

Now, apparently Travis left a bit of a power vacuum back in whatever dirty city he came from and his friends fell in with this guy named Orson, who had them all robbing houses. He discovers this after the horse show when Joe, random dirty city friend, calls him up from the local gas station to inform Travis that he hitch hiked all the way to Oklahoma and had to jump out of a moving vehicle when the driver started to get a little squirrelly. Travis and Casey pick him up and Travis breaks out the Crown Royal and Joe tells his sob story about how Orson, "the twins" and he were robbing houses. Only the twins did a job by themselves without giving Orson anything, and Orson went insane and shot them point blank. In the head. With a twenty-two. Ken, being a lawyer, dumps Joe off with the authorities and they all drive back home in what appears to be one of those massive storms I so anxiously remember back when I used to live in tornado alley.

So this tornado comes along and they try to get the horses in, only the Star Runner gets out of his paddock. So Casey and Travis jump in her car and try to chase the Star Runner down. In so doing they very vaguely drive straight into the tornado. I guess the Star Runner gets away, or maybe dies, or something. S.E. Hinton got heavy on the melodrama at the end, so who knows. There was some reference to burning flesh, and Travis is deaf for a few days, and Casey is fine, but no longer interested in Travis, so Travis transfers his affection to Jennifer and starts to write his next book.

• They were flying, skimming the road, the Central guys left behind long ago, and nobody, man, nobody thought he'd get the car back down. Here, Travis oohs and ahhs us with his fantastic drag racing abilities while chugging beer. I guess they're going 115 and there's some question about if they can stop? I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but there are three ways you can get the car "back down." 1. Take your foot off the gas pedal. 2. Even more efficient, step on the break. 3. Probably less efficient, but no less effective, crash the car. All three work.

• Travis combed his hair, staring into the mirror with fixed concentration. He was good-looking. Probably one of the best-looking guys in the school. He had dark brown hair, not so long that he looked like one of the dopers, not so short that he looked like one of the straights, the student council preppies. Five foot eight. Not bad for sixteen, and by the size of his hands and feet he hadn't stopped growing yet. Good eyes. Great eyes, actually. Gray-green and as cool as the Irish sea. He had read a book about F. Scott Fitzgerald once, and it said he had eyes as cold as the Irish sea. Travis liked that. He secretly liked his eyelashes, too, a black fringe, as long as a girl's. He had a good build, long-boned and lean and flat-stomached, and that was the reason he liked tight T-shirts. Kirk was taller, and had broader shoulders, but Travis thought his own build was as good as any in the school. A lot of girls thought so. A lot. I love this paragraph, so I had to transcribe it here in all its glory. I laughed, and laughed, and, oh, I laughed again.

• On the plane, Travis takes his cat with him into the cabin and the guy next to him states his displeasure. Travis? "Yeah, well, I hear a lot of faggots hate cats."
  

• Because Travis isn't popular at his new school (believe me, this is like the end of the world for him) he takes to smoking cigarettes unnoticed on the baseball field or "in the library." Call me crazy, but I think someone would notice if you were smoking in the library.

• These damn suckers were making him doubt his looks. Travis notices, to his horror, that he has round ears and a pale face. He tries desperately to remember that he is a modern day Adonis...and I laugh and laugh some more.

• "You must dress like your characters." She had it backward, his characters dressed like he did. Yeah, we in the business of being critical because we can call that self-insertion.

• The editor asks Travis who he thinks would read his book and he replies: "Teenagers. Kids like me." He was sure they would because he'd read it and loved it. The fact that he's the author of said book has no bearing on this at all, I'm sure.

• At one of Casey's horse shows, in which Travis accompanies her as a groom, he discovers that the rest of the girls (as, apparently, only girls ride horses at horse shows) think he looks like a "sleazy punk." Horrified, again, he runs to a mirror. Again. What does he tell himself? His hair is too long to look punk! What do hicks know anyway? He's so cool at home! Which is Cleveland, by the way. So...I wouldn't throw stones, Travis. I really wouldn't.

• S.E. Hinton is obsessed with K's and hard C's. The names in this book: Kirk, Ken, Christopher, Kristen, Kelsey, Ms. Carmichael, Katherine Caroline Kencaide (Casey).
  

• We get a lot of unwarranted comparisons between Ken and Achilles. Yes, Achilles from Greek mythology. I'm not sure where this comes from, especially since it's supposed to draw out this line of thought that Ken was young and pushed the envelope too when he was 16 and is now 37 (which means he is old) so he is therefore supposed to be the mentor to Travis's what? Patroclus? I really don't understand how Achilles could be anyone's mentor. He was insane. You know, with the rage?
  

Okay, the only reason I sort of liked this book is because I had the impression that S.E. Hinton was making fun of Travis along with me. Otherwise, I really wanted someone to walk up to Travis and kick him in the groin. Repeatedly.

Although, perhaps she's not making fun of him because, from her website:

S.E. Hinton on the book:
Taming The Star-Runner is a horse story, a love story, and a story of the different forms art can take. And some of the things that happen to Travis, who wrote his first book at sixteen, happened to me. But not all, Thank God.

Well, take from that what you will.

(In light of some pretty crazy rabid Taming the Star Runner fans -- who knew, right? -- I regret to inform you all that commenting on this post is now closed. If you want to take issue with my opinion, e-mail me. I know, I know, making anonymous, misspelled comments is cute and fun for everyone, but this is getting a little weird.)