Rich people have problems too.

Chance Meeting
by Laura Moore

Here is another romance novel. What can I say? Dead Heat is next.

Growing up trapped by her father's wealth, awkward Ty Stannard found freedom on horseback. A talented equestrian, she yearned to ride as well as her idol, champion Steve Sheppard. Worshiping the handsome Kentuckian, she treasures the lucky medallion he gives her the day they chance to meet. But then a nasty fall changes everything, and Ty is forced to leave her dreams behind.

Now a beautiful woman, determined to live life on her own terms, Ty learns that Steve stands on the brink of ruin. Moved by memories of his kindness to her, she offers him financial backing, but Steve perceives only a selfish socialite amusing herself at his expense. In a daring move, he challenges Ty to be not only a financial partner -- but a full-time farmhand as well, expecting she'll tire of the hardships of a working stable. To Steve's surprise, Ty takes up his challenge.

As they rebuild Southwind, Steve's beloved stable, they find unexpected strength and comfort in each other -- and a passion neither can deny. But their fragile love will be tested by not only those who seek to destroy what they have built, but also the insecurities and doubts that shadow their own very vulnerable hearts.

My library copy of this book makes it look like the guy is having a romantic chance meeting with a K-Mart promotional sticker, as that's what's covering up the girl and horse. As it is, this book takes place on Long Island, not Kentucky, so that accounts for the beach scene. I don't know what they're actually doing. Do romance novel covers usually make any sense anyway? That's a resounding no, so we'll move on.

So, it's 1989. Ty Stannard is a billionaire's daughter and Lizzie is her best friend. They are fourteen and in love with Steve Sheppard, who is 23 and a super fantastic rider. Ty has been hoarding pictures of him in her room for years, and so on. It's one of those big, completely hopeless crushes the less well known harbor on the more well known so the more well known can whine and bitch about it while secretly loving it. You know they do. Anyway, Ty and Lizzie are at a show in New York, and Steve is also there and Lizzie gets Ty to dump her bodyguard for a second so they can meet Steve. Which they do. And Steve gives Ty this medallion thing for good luck because he's supposed to be a nice guy, and then the bodyguard finds them and all hell breaks loose.

Ty has a bodyguard because her father, Tyler Stannard (who did, yes, name his daughter Tyler Maximilian Stannard after himself), is a billionaire and obsessed with the thought that someone might kidnap, rape, or otherwise accidentally touch Ty. So that's why she has Sam, the bodyguard. Sam is 29 at this point. I think that sets everything up. So we'll skip on to 1991, when Ty falls off her horse and her dad sells her horse because that damn horse can't be trusted. Sam quits in disgust. Steve buys a horse called Fancy Free. Okay, now we can move on to 1999.

Somewhere in the past eight years, Steve buys a farm on Long Island with this guy named Jason, who rapidly becomes a coke addict to the point that he manages to nearly bankrupt the farm. I don't know what kind of coke addiction you need in order to embezzle to the degree that you singlehandedly cause the ruination of a horse farm, but Jason manages it. More importantly, Steve somehow doesn't notice it, and then his horse, Fancy Free, gets his foot caught in a hay net and dies because Steve finds him when it was supposed to be Jason's night watching the stable, so he has to shoot Fancy. Then Steve beats the crap out of Jason, and seeing as how this is horse society and it's Long Island, the gossip starts raging full force soon after.

Enter Ty to magically save the day. She sells her Rolls Royce and her Lotis and her 5th Avenue apartment and offers to become 50/50 partners with Steve so Southwind will get back on its feet. It's important to note that they haven't seen each other since 1989 and they really don't know each other anyway, so I really didn't care about all this supposed history with the medallion that Ty keeps thinking about. Steve accepts the offer on some conditions, one among them being that Ty has to live on the farm so he can keep an eye on her. He does not trust partners after all, but really this is just a convenient excuse for them to have sex. Although they don't, really, have sex until later. This isn't a Karen Robards book, after all. If it was they'd be on the conference room table in front of the lawyers after fifteen minutes of knowing each other.

Well, anyway. Ty arrives at the farm and discovers the house is filthy. So she whips out her checkbook and has other people clean it. Good going, Ty. I was horrified for a moment that she was going to slip into traditional Disney heroine mode and clean it all herself. Steve is somewhat irked that she doesn't really skip a beat. He hates that she's there, but he's sort of lusting after her to a huge degree, and blah blah blah. Just make up something in your head and it probably happened.

Eventually, sick and tired of having him call her Junior to her face, Ty goes and buys some apple trees so she can plant them at Fancy's grave. This finally knocks sense into Steve's head. Instead of being a jerk, he can be grateful and nice and then maybe he'll finally get laid! Astonishing it took him this long to do that math. No wonder his farm failed and he never noticed his partner was that far gone. So they plant the apple trees and start making out.

Um...and then I guess I should mention that Ty's dad is doing his Evil Empire stuff back in Manhattan. He will convince Ty to come back to him and ruin Steve's life more than he's already ruined it himself and so forth. Back at the farm, Ty learns how to ride again but is so sore that she needs someone to walk on her back. And this results in the weirdest back-walking episode I have ever seen. Basically, Steve walks on her back and it's the most erotic back-walking EVER, which sort of disturbs me in general because I fail to see how this is possible. I don't care what he's doing to muscle groups or how he uses his toes, okay? It's ridiculous.

So then Lizzie shows up. Lizzie married the typical creep who became a creep the day she married him when he tried to rape Ty, who threw up on him. So Lizzie then got pregnant by him and then divorced him, so she's got this asshole ex-husband and a daughter, who is cute, named Emma. Lizzie shows up to help them with clients or some such. Then Sam shows up, so he can tell Ty what his government funded and therefore completely powerful and immune security business found out about her dad's financial maneuvering to screw up her life. And somewhere in there Sam decided he really wanted Lizzie, and Lizzie seems to have forgotten exactly how old Sam is (that would be 40) and mistakes him for 55. I don't know how. OH, it's PROBABLY BECAUSE SHE'S 25. Look, I can handle a ten year age difference. That is doable. When it gets up to 15, I start to get uncomfortable. Anyway, moving past my hang up on ages, I actually like Sam and Lizzie way more than Ty and Steve, mainly because Ty started to get pretty damn boring right about here. She's rich, she's a virgin, she's trying to be nice but keeps getting in stupid arguments with Steve that wind up with making out...it's pretty old at this point. Boo hoo, you're rich and a virgin. Have sex and shut up all ready.

But unfortunately not a whole lot happens that we see with Lizzie and Sam. I guess they verbally spar, which is far more interesting than Steve being upset when he finds out that Ty is that girl he gave the medallion to (like we care? what? this matters how?) before making out with her again. So Sam takes Lizzie home to Connecticut, where I guess they have sex off screen, and we are treated to Ty and Steve having sex, although they're really sappy about it and the phrase "make love" comes up way too much in its various formats. I hate the phrase "make love" mainly because it makes me cringe each time I see it. Sort of like the word slumber. Or the name Kevin. Or the name Steve for that matter. I hate the name Steve almost as much as I hate the name Kevin. I have no reasoning for these things, just in case you're curious.

So they have sex, but call it making love, and I give Laura tons of points for involving a condom that is actually used and not tossed to the side because Ty and Steve are too passionate for practicality. Only it's really awkward and comes across as a ten second sex ed course in the middle of all of it, which...very strange. I totally understand why most authors do away with that detail entirely. But, really, she's a virgin, Steve, not an idiot. I realize some people don't know how to put a condom on, but that's probably because they are idiots.

Well, they have sex and have their sentimental talk later about how they're so happy. I really wish the book ended there. But it doesn't. Instead they have to go compete, and I skimmed through that because I really didn't care. This girl named Cassie shows up, who I swear is a Mary Sue because I see no reasoning for her to be there at all other than to be perfect and nice and sell horses to people as she's busy being perfect and nice and perfect some more. Sam buys a horse for seemingly no reason, Ty and Steve have more sex, Lizzie and Sam verbally spar some more, which in its brevity still remains more interesting than Ty could ever hope to be, and then the Evil Empire rears its ugly head and tries to do something ineffective that causes some drama for five or six pages and then Steve tells off Ty's dad and then he proposes to Ty and asks her to have his amazing fantastical babies. The end.

That's it. No points of interest, really. Just another horsey romance novel over and done with.

Can you ever love something TOO much?

The Saddle Club #2: Horse Shy

Bonnie Bryant
Published: November 1988

The summary:

The three members of the Saddle Club -- Carole, Lisa, and Steve -- are the best of friends, bonded by their special love of horses. Now they're together on the long-awaited Mountain Trail Overnight, riding through the pine forests, swimming in mountain-water ponds, sharing a tent under the stars. ... They are having such a perfect time that nothing -- not even Veronica, the richest and snobbiest girl at the stables -- can spoil their fun.

But the impossible does happen. A tragic accident, caused by Veronica's carelessness, makes Carole lose the one thing she loved most in the world. Is her grief enough to make her give up riding forever?

The plot:

The book opens up with the Saddle Club out on a "practice" trail ride for MTO, since Lisa has only been riding for about three days. They manage to end up in absolutely the wrong field, where they come face to face with a bull. The only way to get out is to jump the fence, despite the fact that Lisa has been riding for about three days and Max doesn't allow his students to start jump classes for a year.

There are eleven people on the MTO: the Saddle Club (3), Veronica diAngelo, Meg Durham, Lorraine Olsen, Betsy Cavanaugh, Joe Novick, Adam Levine, Red O'Malley the stablehand, and of course Max himself. All of these kids seem to be about the age of the Saddle Club, which suggests that you have to be a certain age to go (clearly it has nothing to do with experience, since Lisa has been riding for about three days). We get some Quick Character Development on Mrs. Atwood (hovers, warns Lisa about things like "not going too close to the edge of the mountain"), Mrs. diAngelo (brings Veronica a set of expensive Hermes saddlebags and a bag of Perugina candies), and Carole (leaves her backpack and sleeping bag at home).

They drive up into some mountains and get this MTO started. They trot and canter. We learn that you should not give a hot horse a lot of water to drink at once. Carole and Red take care of Veronica's gorgeous stallion, Cobalt, when Veronica refuses to do it herself. They play horse games; make up stories about Max's grandfather, Maxmillian Regnery I, who founded Pine Hollow; try to get Max to tell them the real story about his grandfather; watch the deer grazing with horses; go swimming in mountain lakes; prance through rainbows, wear sparkly outfits, run from forest fires ... oh wait, wrong book. Anyway, it's kind of like Girl Scout camp on horseback, and really kind of sweet, even though Carole's horse, a palomino called Delilah, is being a bit of a cranky brat.

Except for the time that Max has all of the students, except Lisa-the-three-day rider of course, working on a small jump course, and Veronica gallops Cobalt up to a jump. Max rips her a new one for expecting Cobalt to "fling himself over a jump." Lisa has only been riding for three days, so she has no idea that this is a bad thing; she thinks Max was just looking for an excuse to yell at Veronica. Stevie sets her straight with a minimum of insults.

Back at PH, Carole exercises Cobalt. She loves this horse. He's a sweetheart and a beauty. Running fast and jumping high are in his bloodlines. Etc., etc. You can imagine how this is going to end.

Carole's dad has a business trip to North Carolina, so he takes Carole so she can spend some time with her mother's sister, Elaine, and her cousins, who are all young boys. Carole's mother was mentioned very briefly in the first book, as having died "six months earlier from cancer," but this one goes into a little more detail, especially about how hard Colonel Hanson finds it to be a single parent and Carole's willingness to reassure him that he is a terrific father. It's nicely done and not too anvilicious.

As soon as they get home, Stevie calls from PH, telling Carole to come immediately.

As they neared the stable, Carole could hear the terrible whine of a siren. An ambulance pulled out of the driveway and turned toward the hospital, lights flashing, siren wailing. The diAngelos' Mercedes was parked carelessly in the lot, its doors left open.

But the only things Carole really saw were the veterinarian's pickup truck and the county vet's wagon. That was when Carole knew the worst. Two veterinarians always had to sign a certificate before a horse could be destroyed.

"Cobalt!" she screamed, jumping from the car almost before it stopped.

Lisa and Stevie came running out of the stable. Lisa reached Carole first and put her arm around her. Stevie had tears streaming down her face.

"It's too late, Carole," she said. "He was too badly hurt! They had to do it. He would never heal. It was that long bone in his foreleg -- it was shattered. He just lay there. And then it was over."

Yeah, that about says it all. The next day, Lisa and Stevie tell Carole how Max had them jumping again, and Veronica brought Cobalt down the hill at a gallop and expected him to make the jump and land on a downward slope. Carole knows that "they did the right thing. Cobalt's life was over. He was born to run with the wind, not limp," but she tells Stevie and Lisa that she's quitting riding forever.

Stevie and Lisa do some research on Max's grandfather. There's no info in the papers, and Mrs. Reg, Max's mother and Max I's daughter-in-law, won't give up anything. They finally run into this old guy, Mr. Thompson, who took riding lessons from Max I. Apparently Max I was the strictest, most boring guy ever, and all the stories the students make up about him are much more fun than he ever was. They also spot Veronica, with a cast on her left arm, reading a book about horsemanship and practicing her jumping skills with a chair in the library. It's less weird than it sounds ... no, I take that back. It still sounds very weird, but it does make some sense: Stevie says that "Veronica's had a zillion lessons and a fabulous horse, but she never listened and she never learned. She thought she was too good to make a mistake, but she was wrong. She knows that now. Cobalt's life was a horrible price, but at least she learned something from it."

Meanwhile, Carole agrees to come back to PH not to ride, but to help Mrs. Reg sort out the extra tack that they took on the MTO. While she's there, she sees the newest litter of PH kittens, including one feisty, determined black kitten. Mrs. Reg also busts out her first long, rambling, seemingly-unrelated-to-the-situation-at-hand-but-clearly-has-a-hidden-meaning horse story, about all the different horses she's ridden in her life, but she's never had a favourite.

Another Saturday. Colonel Hanson is heading out to play tennis and then go on a date with a woman named Barbara Lerner, which Carole takes much better than I would if my mother had died seven months ago. Carole reads a scintillating textbook about pyramids, then, without thinking, takes the bus to PH, where she sobs and then falls asleep in Cobalt's stall. When she wakes up, she hears Veronica arguing, with her father, who desperately wants to buy Delilah for "Ronnie" (HAHA). Veronica, to her credit, says that the insurance money they got for Cobalt doesn't have anything to do with it and that she doesn't want another horse until she can take care of him.

Carole realizes that not only has she come to the stable wearing riding clothes, she's ready to ride again. As she heads off to find Max, she sees Mrs. Reg trying to get the feisty little black kitten down from a rafter in the tack room. He's so contrary that Carole decides that he should be named Snowball, but there's no famous horse named Snowball, so Mrs. Reg suggests that "if he's not a stable cat, he doesn't have to have a stable name" and that Carole should ask her dad if she can have him.

Carole tells Max she wants to rejoin the class and Max of course says yes, but that she won't be riding Delilah. Carole takes that to mean that Mr. diAngelo bought her after all, but that's not it: she's pregnant, and Cobalt is the babydaddy.

Everyone is thrilled to see Carole again, and she figures out the message behind Mrs. Reg's horse story:

"What made you decide to come back?" Lisa asked.

"There were a lot of things. I think you were right in a way when you said I was horse shy. But not just about any horse -- it was Cobalt. It hurt so much when he died that I was afraid I might get hurt again if something like that happened to another horse. But when I saw what Veronica had learned -- well, I thought if there's hope for her, then there's hope for me. Anyway, the only thing worse than losing something you care about is not having something you care about at all. I learned that when Mom died.

Stevie and Lisa sat quietly. "There was something else," Carole continued. "I finally realized that no matter how much I cared about him, Cobalt wasn't mine. He belonged to somebody else."

"But you rode him more than Veronica did!" Lisa reminded her.

"I did, that's right. And I rode him better. But Mrs. Reg had the final lesson to me, though she didn't say it in so many words. There are lots of horses, some good, some bad, most mixes of good and bad. And I want to ride them all!"

And that's it. They eat ice cream, they schmooze, they dance, everything's fine. Yay!

This one is too sad for me to be really negative about it. I am always surprised at how early Cobalt was killed off (of course, back then BB thought there were going to be just four books) and how much personality he had (albeit, slightly conflicting personalities, such as difficult/sweet, beautiful, kittenish). And he continues to be a very personality-filled horse through the rest of the series, especially after Delilah gets pregnant and barefoot and basically exists to be the foal's mother.

Points of Interest:

• I am now 25 and have still never seen anything from Hermes, nor have I figured out what Perugina candies are. I must lead a deprived life.
  
• When Max breaks everyone into teams for horse games, he puts Carole, Stevie, Meg, Lorraine, and Red on one time, and Veronica, Joe, Betsy, Lisa, and Adam Levine on another. Like, really? Carole, Stevie, and Red on one team? In what universe is that fair?
  
• 'K, so Cobalt dies jumping a downhill slope, exactly what Max reamed Veronica for on the MTO. I can't imagine a downhill slope being the best or safest place to teach a bunch of twelve-year-olds to jump, not to mention that there are plenty of other (flat) places around PH to set up jumps, and did he really think Veronica listened to him at all when he yelled at her the first time? After it happened, Veronica told her parents that it was Max's fault, because he shouldn't have set up the jump that way. Well, I certainly don't think it was Max's fault, but I'm not sure he should have set up the jump that way either.
  
• Another PH tradition is to name the cats after famous horses, like Eclipse (a Thoroughbred), Copperbottom (a Quarter Horse), and Sir Archie (also a Thoroughbred). Mrs. Reg things it's "about time to use some of the Standardbreds," and suggests Messenger, Hambletonian, Dutchman, Yankee, and Dan Patch. This is a much cuter and more realistic tradition than the soda whip, and it's nice to know all the cats aren't named Seattle Slew and Affirmed (or Just Victory and Canady Red). Plus, can you imagine PH in the year 2060, when they'd have to have cats called Afleet Alex and Funny Cide?
  
• I particularly enjoy how Carole thinks that "People who told horse stories usually told about the unlikely undersized weakling foal who grew up to take blue ribbons at the National Horse Show. Real life, Carole knew, wasn't like that." Or the Kentucky Derby, perhaps. Roses, then, not blue ribbons.
  
• Veronica actually never objects to being called Ronnie; Carole is the one who is surprised that Veronica would let someone call her that.
  
• This was the second book reprinted in 2007-2008. As far as I know, they made no text changes, like tape players to CD players, the way they did in the first book.

Caitlin's Way: Caitlin is so complicated she doesn't even understand herself.

Season 1, Episode 19: Playing Caitlin
Aired: August 13, 2000

We're starting out this episode in what looks to be drama class. I'm sure these kids probably have something like fifteen different classes as required by whatever plot the show is going for at the moment, and at this particular juncture, the show is going for high school plays/teenagers are emo, right? So the kids are in drama, and they're all in it together. I proceed to not understand how this school system works, but it's not really important at this point.

Anyway, they're all in drama. They are talking about something, which leads to the teacher whipping out Caitlin's play and reciting a few lines. The play Caitlin has written is obviously about her life. Naturally, Caitlin finds nothing as interesting as herself, so her play is all about how no one understands her and then she gets arrested for stealing a camera. The teacher just loves her play, but Caitlin understandably is pissed that the teacher read the passage in front of everyone.

Enter Caitlin's whiny voice over about why adults want to get inside the heads of teenagers. Or, gasp, maybe they just want to get inside Caitlin's head! Honestly, I don't see how anyone would want to go in there. They'd just be bored out of their mind.

Returning from the horrible opening sequence (I'm still not over its awfulness), Griffen and his friends, Eric and some other guy, are playing basketball while Eric tells them that he's signed them up to put on a play instead of writing a paper for drama. Initially Griffen is hesitant, but then he decides that this is a good idea. Although Eric and the other guy tell him that they can't use Griffen's play because there are no girls in it. I think it's about time that Griffen just embrace his gayness. Seriously, the signs could not be any clearer at this point.

Cue Caitlin. She wanders onto the basketball court and Eric falls on her like an small, excited dog in attempts to convince her to let them put on her play. Eventually she says yes, although she doesn't really know why. I imagine it's probably another way for her to be the center of attention, regardless of what she's actually saying. So they're all happy. On to the auditions, leading to a ridiculous series of girls bouncing up and down and hiccuping and trying to act seductive, or something like that. Only then this blond girl shows up and sweeps Griffen off his feet because she's blond and kind of pushy. I don't remember her name, so henceforth she will be referred to as Blond Girl. Yeah, I'm not feeling creative today.

Immediately Caitlin starts being critical of Blond Girl's acting, because Blond Girl can't possibly understand Caitlin's motives for being a whiny bitch. Eric is over there getting into his role as the cop that arrests Caitlin, leading to some ridiculous scenes involving roller blading that were not needed. Eventually Eric decides he wants a bigger role that will include a motorcycle, but Caitlin refuses to write that in, dashing Eric's delusions of grandeur. Only then Blond Girl still isn't getting Caitlin's mysteriousness, despite the script supposedly being right there. I don't see how this could be such a problem, but it nevertheless is and this inevitably leads Blond Girl to the decision that the only way to understand Caitlin is to live Caitlin's life.

Don't worry! This is not Single White Female. Blond Girl decides to spend a night in a back alley, where she sits in cat pee and then decides to go home after Griffen somehow wanders across her and asks her what the hell she's doing.

After this, Blond Girl is further confused. She does not understand Caitlin! How could she? The script, you see, is not clear! No one understands why Caitlin stole this stupid camera and why she allowed herself to get caught when she could have hopped over a fence to freedom had she just left the camera where she dropped it. I guess these people don't understand the concept of show not tell, because they need it spelled out for them. Blond Girl decides that she needs to come on to Eric the cop, because I suppose she figures that Caitlin is a whore. Then she opts for crying, because she figures Caitlin is girlier than Caitlin would like to admit in public. That's when Caitlin gets fed up and walks out on the production so she can ride Bandit out to a field and then angst over a copy of her script.

So then she has her great moment of enlightenment. They are right! The script makes no sense because it's just so damn vague. Standing in the field with Bandit, Caitlin plucks a pencil out of thin air and edits her script. Then I guess she races Bandit back to the wherever she came from and shows Blond Girl and Co. the new script at the dress rehearsal. Blond Girl refuses to do the new pages because she can't remember the lines and should therefore probably start looking for another possible career, and Eric throws up and refuses to be a part of the play. So the rehearsal would be falling apart if not for Caitlin's insistence that she play herself. She should have done it all along!

And then we cut to a monologue about how Caitlin wanted to steal the camera because that would mean she's free and would stop having such annoying parental issues and would hopefully stop crying for attention. Everyone at the dress rehearsal loves it, and then I guess Caitlin goes on to personally deliver her private issues to hundreds of her classmates at later performances.

• "Come on, Caitlin. No one ever comes to our plays. Not after last year's production of Cats." I've never seen Cats, but I can imagine a high school production of it would be horrible.
  

• "It's in the literary tradition of The Outsider with stylistic reference to The Phantom Menace." Wow, am I the only one that thinks this play is a really bad idea? Is it even possible to make a stylistic reference to The Phantom Menace? And are we really going to compare Caitlin's life to Albert Camus seriously? Because I think we need to take a good look at this show before we do that.
  

• The Blond Girl's audition is her in a Halloween witch costume as she reads from Macbeth. Griffen's response is: "You never see blond witches!" I...yeah, no. I'm just going to keep going.
  

• "Black everything. Cheap jewelry, sullen makeup." The Blond Girl takes note of Caitlin's appearance and hits it spot on. Cheap and sullen. She said it better than I ever could.

• What is with everyone just casually wandering into the public bathrooms? Caitlin strolls into the boy's bathroom, the guys just walk right into the girl's bathrooms. This is a public high school, not a private liberal arts college. Okay?

• "My dad won't let me shave because I'm too young. This is my face!" Caitlin's monologue inspires Griffen's other friend to rebel and start shaving. My, how Caitlin inspires us all!

Okay, I swear I am reading, but I'm a bit busy at the moment, so these Caitlin's Way episodes more than provide me enough fodder for the blog. I'll have a few books ready to post next week.

Caitlin's Way: Money = Trust

Season 1, Episode 16: Caitlin's Trust
Aired: July 23, 2000

We're delving a little further into season one with Caitlin's Trust in this review, where the ultimate question is answered: what should garner more trust? The unconditional love and support of family members who feed, clothe, and shelter you or a trust fund that sits around collecting interest? Rest assured, we are about to find out.

This episode opens with Griffen and Caitlin walking home from school. Griffen has received a new e-mail from his "cyber pen pal" Jocelyn about the brilliance of Radiohead, and Griffen is reading aloud her e-mail to Caitlin, who isn't impressed. Griffen adores Jocelyn, who is French and therefore "deeper" than American girls because they don't diet and have no body image issues. Caitlin is about to make fun of this, but that's when she finds a government check in the mail that she of course rips open to discover that Dori and Jim are being paid $300 every unspecified number of weeks or months or something because they've taken in Caitlin and it's standard government procedure to hand cash to foster families. Griffen takes this in stride and goes that extra step further by telling Caitlin jokingly that she has a horse and is a drain on the family resources. Because Caitlin has no sense of humor and is basically a really horrible meld of Cindy and Melanie with an eyebrow piercing, she grabs onto this phrase and runs with it. A drain on the family? How dare they think that!

Enter horrible opening sequence. God, it's so bad.

Continuing on, Caitlin approaches Dori, who is nursing a baby moose. I don't know why, so I'm just going to skip that. Caitlin tells Dori that they need more apples for Bandit, who is an apple whore. Dori says that yeah, sure, she'll get them or something but then she dares to mention that she thinks Caitlin is feeding Bandit too many apples. Bandit will become spoiled! Caitlin immediately reverts to her street days, I guess, and gets all offended, but before she can really blow a gasket over this stupid comment, Dori pulls out a vintage jacket she found while she was going through her old clothes for some themed high school reunion she and Jim are going to. Caitlin accepts the jacket, but is not swayed from her earlier anger. She'll get the damn apples herself!

Caitlin puts on her jacket and rides Bandit into town. She basically parks him and ties him up to a lamppost, then admires herself and her jacket in the reflection of a window. Right about here I'm thinking that the jacket is way too small for her bustiness and right when that thought goes through my head she bends down and rips the jacket to shreds. Poor Caitlin. She is too busty.

Meanwhile, Griffen and his friend Eric discover an eating contest at the local diner. The winner will get to go to Paris! Thrilled that he will be able to proclaim his love to his "cyber pen pal" in person, Griffen starts to eat lots of hamburgers.

Moving back to Caitlin, she's busy throwing the ripped jacket at Dori and demanding to know why she doesn't get anything new out of her aunt and uncle who selflessly took her in, because shelter and security are secondary to shiny new things! Dori really doesn't know what to say to this, but then Jim drives up in their brand new shiny Jeep. Yes, a JEEP. Everyone fawns over the new car, while Caitlin grumbles to herself about how the car is probably bought on her government money fund, so she figures it's really hers. Dori and Jim then go out to the reunion, but not before Caitlin can make some snide comment about all the money they're making because she's a bitch.

So, left without supervision, Caitlin, Griffen and Eric decide to drive the Jeep to town so the boys can go eat more hamburgers at the diner. On her way back to the house, I guess Caitlin drove through a swamp in the middle of Montana because her windshield is so full of dead insects that she can no longer see the road. That's when she randomly veers off the road and crashes the Jeep. A hospital visit later, Caitlin is grounded and Jim is rethinking this whole raising a juvenile delinquent thing. Caitlin suffers one of those I-can't-stand-staying-away-from-my-wonder-horse issues and goes to ride Bandit despite being grounded, but Griffen stops her and insists that if she does that she'll be moved to a new foster home for sure and he wants her to stay.

Then Caitlin had to go get all touching about Jim and Dori's routine in the morning, and how great it is being at Lowe Ranch, and I actually liked that part. So Griffen goes to plead Caitlin's case to his parents, and he reveals that he was sort of in on driving the Jeep too, and Caitlin is further touched, and she does her best sincere apology and so she can stay. Also, the money the government has been sending Jim and Dori has been put into a trust fund.

So while Caitlin and Griffen are doing their community service as part of Jim's requirement of paying their dues to society, Eric wins the eating contest and gets the France trip. He's all thrilled because this means he can go to Paris and impress Jocelyn with his 20 touchdowns, only Griffen has a surprise in store for everyone. Jocelyn is actually a guy, which he just now discovered, further cementing my belief that Griffen is gay.

We end with a lovely voice over from Caitlin about how Jim and Dori won her trust by giving her money. So, you see, the trust fund is more important after all. Thank you for sharing such wise moral advice, Caitlin!

• While Caitlin is recovering from the car accident, Eric convinces Griffen not to say he was in on driving the Jeep to town because he wouldn't want to go to jail, would he? Yeah, something tells me grand theft auto just isn't going to be applied here, Eric.

• Still with the "she broke the law!" At least Dori has the sense to say, "yeah, but you don't have to press charges." Seriously.

• Grant, I suppose the second policeman in town after Jim, sees Caitlin driving the Jeep and turns to follow her up to the crash site. All this time he's bemoaning Caitlin's stupidity, basically, but I can't tell if it's supposed to be voice over or the worst syncing that ever existed.
  

Just to let everyone know, Caitlin's Way is on The N, some network for teens I did not know existed until now. So set your DVR or whatever and follow along!

Caitlin's Way: You can't comprehend Caitlin's issues! Do not try!

Season 1, Episode 4: Boundaries
Aired: March 12, 2000

So, I guess by sheer luck I started out this series with an episode relatively close to the beginning. Caitlin (Lindsay Felton) is still sort of fresh off the Philadelphia streets, where (as the opening sequence suggests) she spent all her time dying her hair, acting emo, and trying to trick people out of their money. Really, who falls for the three-card trick? Do people still do this, or is it something you only see on television?

This episode starts with Griffen Lowe, Caitlin's cousin, snooping around in her room. He rummages through her things, stares at a CD case as if he has no idea what it could possibly be, and somehow winds up in her underwear drawer. From this, I suppose we can deduce that Griffen has been repressing some dirty sexual urge and now that his female cousin is living with him he's going to start acting on his desires. Only in a very "I'm fifteen and harmless" sort of way. Actually, I had the distinct impression that Griffen is gay. Although that might be because at one point he goes on and on about this green shirt that will look so good with his new shoes. And also because Caitlin seems to routinely beat him up.

Okay, anyway, Caitlin finds him wandering around in her room and she does not like this. Griffen doesn't like it either, because her room used to be his game room, and really he was just up there looking for this old Nintendo cartridge, but Caitlin doesn't buy this and throws a pillow at him. Yes, Griffen, let this be a lesson to you! Stay out, or Caitlin will batter you with more feather-filled objects! Well, everyone is all "oooh, she threw something! she's so hard core!" and Griffen retreats.

Enter really ugly opening sequence. Seriously.

So Caitlin is listening to her music when she hears Bandit, the buckskin mustang wonder horse she saved or something, causing a ruckus in the barn. Caitlin rushes down to the barn and starts talking to Bandit about his hurt neck, because I guess he hurt it, and then starts to project her problems onto him. Does Bandit really want to say? Won't Bandit try to stick around a few more days? Then she sleeps in the barn with the horse. Her aunt wakes her up in the morning and blabbers about testing boundaries and something or another, giving Caitlin pause to mope about her situation. Then they eat breakfast. All hell breaks loose over the last pancake, which Griffen claims as his own by licking it and then shoving it in his mouth. Caitlin then compares her new life to jail and goes off to ruin Griffen's "best" shirt. The two kids scuffle around in the gravel for a minute before aunt and uncle (Dori and Jim) break it up and force them to do something together. Therefore they will be cooking dinner when they get home from school tomorrow. Boo, is essentially the verdict delivered by the kids.

They go to school. Griffen's friend tries to scuff up Griffen's perfect white shoes (...) and Caitlin gets in the guy's face. Stop trying to scuff up my prissy cousin's white shoes! And Griffen is all offended because his friend was just trying to be funny and he leaves in a huff because Caitlin is so serious all the time and does not like to be social, nor understands how to be anything other than emo. This all comes to a head after their Lit class, where Caitlin seems to not understand what the river means in Huck Finn, giving Griffen (who happens to be in the same class, of course) the chance to jump in and give his answer that it's all about life's journey! Caitlin acts emo some more. Then she storms into the men's bathroom to confront Griffen over this stupid river and how she was going to say that it's about something else all literary and meaningful that is also right, only it's more right because it's Caitlin's answer. Then she squirts him with water from the sink. Ohmigosh! She's even more hard core! Feather pillows and squirting water! It's too much for Griffen's rural mindset to compute! So he tries to squirt his Fresca all over her, but misses and gets the teacher instead. Damn. They both get detention and have to clean the bathroom. Something I don't see happening at all. High school teachers are never that creative.

Meanwhile, Dori tries to take Bandit out of the barn without a lead for the nonexistent blacksmith and of course she loses him. So Bandit is off running around and Dori and Jim have to go find him as Dori whispers about how much Bandit means to Caitlin.

Then the kids miss their bus, although frankly they missed it because Caitlin had to go into a long ass talk about how her life is so much more difficult than Griffen's because sometimes she didn't know where home was in Philadelphia. Yeah, Griffen, don't you dare try to tell Caitlin that you have problems too. She doesn't care about your problems because hers are always worse. Always. So they walk home. And nearly get gored by a bull. And they argue some more about how much their situation sucks and about how Caitlin doesn't have to do anything anyone tells her because she's hard core.

Eventually a neighbor comes along and Griffen abandons Caitlin to get a ride home in the neighbor's truck. She won't get in because there's a pig in the bed. Or something that looks like a pig. Anyway, Caitlin covers up this pig abhorrence with just being mean and irritating because she can, and Griffen goes off with the truck. Only then he sees Bandit running around and has to alert Caitlin. So he alerts Caitlin and miraculously they find Dori and Jim and Bandit. They all sort of converge together in a very convenient manner that would never possibly happen realistically. And Caitlin uses her magical horsey ability to calm wild mustangs and all is well. Perhaps Montana or Calgary or wherever the hell she is won't be so bad after all!

And they walk home, Caitlin and Griffen's problems are weirdly shoved to the side because Caitlin has magical horse-calming abilities, and then presumably they eat pizza.

• Caitlin calms Bandit with her magical words of "whoa!" Griffen says: "Dad, did you see that? Did you see that?" Jim: "I'm standing right here, Griff." It becomes apparent that Jim has the best lines in this series. Obviously he saw Caitlin's magic. He was, as he said, right there.

• Griffen continues his insane blubbering over Caitlin's horse magic and she says, "It comes with the territory." What territory? What is she talking about?

• You know what I dislike? When they replace the main horse actor with another horse actor that is obviously different. Like, the main horse that plays Bandit has no blaze. The actor they have for running scenes has a blaze. It's obvious the horse has a blaze. You can't miss it.
  

So, that is my first Caitlin's Way episode. I hope you enjoyed the innocent teenage angst and melodrama.

Book Rec: Blue Moon

Blue Moon
by Marilyn Halvorson
Published: 1994, 2004

Can Bobbie Jo take a beat-up old horse and turn her into a champion barrel racer?

The first thing I have to say about this book is that it's 109 pages, and the type is relatively large. Given that the actual story starts on page 7 (this is the first book I've seen that starts the page numbers at the title page), it's actually 102 pages of story. If you're really focused, you can finish this book in a matter of minutes.

It's first person, told from B.J.'s viewpoint and starts at an auction. B.J. has scraped together all her money, some $700, and went to the auction to pick up a yearling that she can train to become a barrel racer. Only when she got to the auction she wound up buying a blue roan mare. She blames this mainly on the mare's color, because she's been obsessed with blue roans ever since reading a picture book way back when. When she goes to pay for the mare, she's ten dollars short and told that if she can't come up with the money the mare will be resold. She races out to find $10, because there are kill buyers at the auction and the mare in question was in some danger of being bought for meat.

While looking for $10, she runs into Cole. Cole is all seventeen and cocky and calls B.J. Blue Jeans, which B.J. absolutely hates. But she grabs him and demands that he give her ten dollars, which after mocking her a little he eventually gives her about eight dollars and change. She rushes back to give the cashier her money and insists that she'll get the rest ($1.25) later. The cashier just rolls his eyes and makes up for it himself, so she's got her horse. Only the horse hates trailers, so as she's the only person there that can get this horse on the trailer, Cole appears again and helps her out. But then he gets fired for walking off his job to help her. Poor Cole. B.J. tells herself that it's not her fault he was being stupid, and takes the horse home to her less than thrilled family.

Her family are dairy farmers, and they need work over the summer. So eventually B.J. gives in to her guilt over getting Cole fired and finds him in school the next day to offer him this government assistance program job or whatnot, because she can't do it given that she's family and all. He takes her up on her offer after initially refusing because he's the proud cowboy type. He also has long, curly blond hair...which I have to blame on the fact that this was first published in 1994. Really, I can't imagine who in their right mind would allow that to happen to their head.

Well, anyway. Cole is also pretty good with horses, so he likes watching B.J. deal with the mare, who is all beaten up and angry, but remarkably quiet and good under saddle. He also won't let B.J. pay him back his $8 and change, insisting he's got a stake in the mare...much to B.J.'s annoyance. He begins to help her out training the mare, which she eventually names Blue Moon because Cole's crippled dad comes over to look at her and says something about how rare a horse like it is. B.J. keeps training Blue Moon for barrel racing, and she and Cole start striking up a friendship that you know is eventually going to turn into a relationship. Only then he has to go start acting weird about Blue Moon and B.J. gets all offended when she thinks he's not totally supportive of their chances at winning. But they get over it and go to the barrel racing event thing, and Blue Moon wins the competition.

On the way back to the dairy farm, they nearly get run off the road and Cole has the chance to tell her why he's been acting so weird. As it happens, his dad used to be a big time horse trainer before they were run off the road by a drunk driver, crippling him and causing him to lose his job. So they only have these three horses and are basically poor, but because his dad used to be someone he knows who Blue Moon is. She's a mare that was stolen from some big name ranch, giving B.J. the chance to do the right thing and call up the previous owners. The previous owners are brilliant and wonderful and they ask B.J. how much she paid for the horse. Then they tell her that she can keep the mare if she's willing to breed Blue Moon to Cole's fantastic stallion so they can have the foal. B.J. is okay with this. The end.

So yeah, like I said it's really short. But the weird thing about it is B.J. and Cole are actually good characters. B.J. is spunky and pretty confident, blowing the Typical Perfect Horse Story Girl out of the water, and I liked Cole despite his horrible hair. I just pretended it didn't exist, and managed to get through the story just fine.

I don't know what I think about the ending, as it flies out of nowhere and seems fairly unrealistic, but that's usually how the girl-might-have-to-give-up-horse-but-doesn't plot goes. All in all, I'd say it's the strongest 109 page horse story I've ever read. I don't know if that's saying something or not, but it's an enjoyable read that will take under an hour.

So...I think I have Dead Heat coming up this week. As well as Chance Meeting by Laura Moore and Ashleigh's Hope, because I have to get through all the Bentley books. I've also decided to start reviewing some television on this blog, mainly because I decided to Google "thoroughbred series" and "wildfire" together to see what happened. Naturally I got reviews for each being compared to each other. So I decided to bite the bullet. If other people think this, obviously I have to finally watch this stupid show, right? So I'm going to watch Wildfire. I'm also going to start watching Caitlyn's Way, mainly because it's syndicated and easy to find completely random episodes. So we'll have some television-related blog entries starting this week, probably.

That's all the news here.

I read this book and all I got was this empty feeling.

A Horse of Her Own
by Annie Wedekind
Published: June 2008

Annie Wedekind is a new author, just experiencing the first blush of publication and enjoying the thrill of seeing her words in print. Congratulations, Annie! Your hard work (I presume you worked hard, but whatever) has payed off. What's more, you have a very cute website. I admire all of that.

But it's not going to stop me from recapping this book to the standards I usually reserve for Thoroughbred. (Annie, if you've read Thoroughbred, don't worry. I love it and will be the first to defend it. Think of this as a very positive situation for you.)

Summary:

Fourteen-year-old Jane Ryan has always dreamed of having a horse of her own—but so long as she gets to ride her favorite school horse, Beau, at Sunny Acres farm, she’s content. And this is the summer she means to try out for the advanced riding class.

But just as camp begins, Jane receives heartbreaking news about Beau. She loses, not just her favorite horse, but also her chance to ride in the end-of-summer competition. When her trainer asks for her help with an out-of-control chestnut warmblood, Lancelot, a newcomer to the barn, she has no choice but to say yes.

There’s another new addition to the farm: Ben Reyes, the grandson of the barn's manager. As Jane struggles to go on without Beau, and to make Lancelot the great horse she believes him to be, her feelings for Ben, her relationships with the privileged group of girls she rides with, and her painful, joyous road to self-discovery all lead to a heart-pounding conclusion that is truly a new beginning. Only Jane’s faith in Lancelot, and her own rediscovered skill and strength, can see her through the hard journey toward a horse of her own.

The Kirkus Review calls this "probably the most honest horse book since National Velvet." I have a huge problem with this statement for three reasons. The first among them is that National Velvet was published in 1935. Am I really to expect that the world has been without an "honest" horse book for 73 years? Secondly, this isn't an honest horse book. This is basically Camp Saddlebrook and Melanie's Last Ride combined. That's right. Think on that for a minute. Thirdly, I'm pretty sure the Kirkus Review only mentions National Velvet because this book shamelessly references National Velvet's plot as being similar to its own.

I'm going to focus first on the author for a minute. Annie is originally from Louisville, where she learned how to ride on a farm similar to the farm she depicts in her novel. There's also a note in the back of the book about how the setting of her novel is so very similar to the setting of her youth (as in, it is the same), but don't worry all you people who knew her when she was young. She didn't write you into her novel, or anything. Not to worry! Oh, except for that Beau horse (which is pronounced "Boo," so why they didn't just spell it Boo is beyond me), who I guess existed at one point.

Yeah, so from all of that are we immediately suspicious that our main character is going to be a Mary Sue? Well, let's find out, shall we?

Meet Jane Ryan. She's the daughter of two college professors and lives in downtown Louisville, which therefore makes her unworthy to all the other suburban-raised kids in her riding class. Except for Robin, who is rich and suburban-raised herself, and somehow manages to be accepted by the rich snobs while dutifully playing Jane's best friend. The rich snobs are Alyssa and Jennifer, who have snubbed Jane for about five solid years. Then there's Jessica, Alyssa and Jennifer's third portion of their triumvirate of bitchiness. Jessica drifts back and forth, mostly loyal to Alyssa, but she sometimes throws Jane a brief glimpse of hope that she'll be included in their clique, which mainly just confuses Jane. Jane, you see, so desperately wants to belong.

Now, the thing here is that everyone has their own horse except for Jane. Jane is painfully aware of this fact. Riding school horses, you see, is so very terrible and Jane so wants her own horse and you see the issue, I'm sure. In the early goings of the book she begs her father one last time for her very own horse and he tells her again that they just can't afford it (yet they've been sending her to a private school up through 8th grade...because they are college professors and public school is not good or challenging enough for their socially awkward daughter). Jane responds by bursting into tears.

Jane just takes this melodrama and applies it to her determination to get into the Advanced I class on Beau, her trusty school horse. During their last lesson before their instructor, Susan, decides on their placement for camp, the other evil bitchy girl, Emily, arrives with a brand new horse. It is the fantastical chestnut gelding Lancelot. Only he's crazy. And Emily sort of beats the crap out of him with her crop. And now he hates crops. Of course he does. So Susan sticks Emily in Advanced II and thus Jane gets to be in Advanced I. Camp starts. This is all fairly uneventful until Jane runs into the boy of her dreams, Ben. Only she spends most of this meeting being even more socially awkward than normal and talking to animals. Poor, poor Jane.

In the early goings of the camp, instructor Susan has the Advanced I girls go over this cross country course, having them all go over this crazy big hedge jump without really informing them that this jump is involved in the course. Ben is hidden in the trees to make sure they all go over this jump, and only two actually do -- Jane and Jessica. Alyssa and Jennifer opt out of the jump entirely, getting reprimanded by Susan as they hold firm in their belief that they were being responsible by refusing to jump such an obstacle. I can't really say what the whole point was of this giant hedge jump other than Susan expecting everyone to do as she commands, but whatever. After this reprimand, Susan goes and informs Jane that Beau was sold to one of the younger kids and so Jane has no mount. There's some talk about the owners of the barn deciding to get another horse for the stable, but this never actually materializes. I kept expecting someone to tell Jane not to worry because a new horse is coming along, but no one does.

You want to know why? No one tells Jane about the new horse because Emily has thrown a temper tantrum and left camp, dumping Lancelot in a stall with a bucket of grain. Lancelot colics, and while Jane is all moping around in the middle of the night, she runs into the drama in the barn with Ben and his grandfather, Jose, who are both taking care of the panicked gelding. Only Jose decides to put the horse back in the stall to let him roll because that's supposed to be just fine? Apparently it's okay to let a colicking horse roll all over the place and the only danger to a horse in this condition is that they might smack a leg against the sides of their stall? Is there some reasoning behind why Annie is rewriting EVERYTHING I've ever known about treating colic? Horse people, help me out here.

So, after saving Lancelot's life, Jane becomes the gelding's personal Jesus. She walks out to the horse in his paddock and offers him grass and he's all "grass!" and lets her lead him around. Everyone is shocked. I...am not, I've got to say. So then Susan let's it be known that she bought Lancelot from Emily's parents and she wants Jane to ride him.

Let's just get this out now: Jessica has already told Jane that the other girls don't like her because they're intimidated by her. Also, it's pretty apparent that Jane is the best rider there ever was in the history of this barn. Also, Alyssa calls her Ms. Goody, and she's right. Jane is a perfect goody-goody. She may be a dirty mess who wears high-waisted jeans and Keds from 1986, but just because she has no fashion sense doesn't make her any less of a perfect brat. After this Ms. Goody moment, it becomes screamingly apparent that Jane is just that. And it's highly annoying.

So, right when Jane starts harboring these feeling for Ben, Jessica comes along and swoops him up. She also transforms from a somewhat sympathetic and interesting character into a two-dimensional nut case who shows two emotions: jealousy and pissiness. Therefore the main antagonist switches from Alyssa to Jessica in the bat of an eye.

Meanwhile, Jane continues to ride Lancelot and he continues to accidentally beat the crap out of her. Jose and Susan get into this random yelling match about how Jane shouldn't be riding Lancelot at all because he's not hers and she'll just get all heartbroken when she has to be taken off of him again? Like...suck it up, Jane. And who are these people to really care whether or not she has a horse? And where is this horse the owners were buying and moving to the barn? Huh? HUH?

Anyway, Ben and Jane start taking Lancelot on trail rides and Jessica is not pleased about this. At one point she strolls up to them in Lancelot's stall and informs Ben she's going to go swimming. She proceeds to strip her shirt off to show him how wonderful her breasts look in a red bikini. Jane just blushes again and realizes she'll never have a chest like Jessica's. This is a pretty clunky area, obviously.

So, let me see here. Let's just get to the main point. Jane decides she's going to ride in the end of camp show with Lancelot, only she's going to ride in Advanced I. Because Lancelot is kind of a lunatic, Jane winds up doing more Advanced II work with him because no one wants Lancelot to fly into a cross country jump and kill them both. Only Jane is not satisfied with this. So she has Ben spy on Advanced I classes for her, and he gets her the jumping tests for the show, and Jessica is further pissed off. Ben finally tells Jane that he had told Jessica about the hedge jump from the beginning of camp, with expectations that Jessica would tell everyone else in Advanced I. Well, Jessica didn't tell Jane. Wow, shocking. So Ben and Jessica get into a fight about Jane.

Eventually, Jane falls off of Lancelot again and injures her shoulder. Fighting through the pain, she enters the Advanced I show anyway and wins. Afterward Susan gives Lancelot to Jane (we all saw that coming, right?), but only after they all discover that Lancelot isn't actually the horse they all thought he was. Gasp! Who is this horse? Where did Emily's dad get him?

Well, those questions aren't answered because Annie is working on a sequel. I'm going to predict right now that the sequel is going to be about Lancelot's real background and then there's going to be a plotline that will concern Jane possibly having to give him up, but in the end she gets to keep him. Right? If that's not exactly on the money, I'm sure it's a variation on the same theme.

• There are two things that started to annoy me in their repetition: blushing and calling everything crazy. At one point someone yells something about "that crazy horse! That's crazy!" Like...there are synonyms for crazy. Lots of them. Also, the blushing. Jane may be shy, but I don't think it's possible to blush that often. It happened nearly three times per chapter. There are 21 chapters. That's too much.

• I appreciated Robin the most in the entire book. I expected her to fall into the typical secondary character meant to solely support the main character's brilliance, but she does have an little plotline of her own. The unfortunate thing about her plotline is how lame it is. Her problem is she doesn't want to compete, which pretty much boils down to the repeated insistence that no one is as good as Jane.

• Annie was trying for some humor in this book. You could really tell she wanted readers to laugh at the antics and the characters constantly lapsing into British accents, but it felt really forced and unfunny to me. Actually, Robin and Jane always seemed to act like they were drunk whenever they were together, which was probably not what Annie was going for at all.

• Beau is sold to a ten-year-old girl named Megan, giving Jane the opportunity to become Megan's mentor. There was a lot of sappiness that was not needed at all here. About half of Megan's scenes could have been cut entirely and Jane's character would have been stronger for it.

• Jane never does anything wrong when she's riding. In fact, she always does everything right. What's more, she only falls off during accidents involving twigs or things that happen to slap at Lancelot. Therefore, the only reason Lancelot is dumping Jane is because Emily is such a bitch. Really.

• At the show, Alyssa and Jennifer's older brothers show up. Jane's older sister, Lily, also shows up. Immediately I just knew the brothers were going to take an interest in Jane and Lily. What happened? Oh, they totally stared at them. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to feel smug.

Here's my final verdict on Jane. She's not a Mary Sue. A bit of a self-insert, she may well be, but mostly she just suffers from being a typical main character in a typical young adult horse story. She's the girl that doesn't have everything, doesn't own a horse and desperately wants one, works hard, is a "natural" at riding, is almost too down to earth, gets beaten up severely and rises above her injuries, and wins her show/class/whatever before randomly getting a horse of her own in the end. God, that girl and plot gets annoying eventually.

So, Annie, I'm sorry to say, but "most honest horse book since National Velvet" this story is not, because it's basically every juvenile horse story I've read since January...and that's a lot of them. It's a good first try, and I will most assuredly read the sequel, because I mainly want to see if I'm right about the plot. Otherwise, A Horse of Her Own is about as original as its title. Which, considering I already reviewed Joanna Campbell's A Horse of Her Own, is not very original at all.