Upcoming: The Cup

So this has been out in Australia for all of five seconds, and I have no idea when it's wandering over to the US. Still, it looks promising in a Champions sort of way.

The A Circuit doesn't mean there is no drunken horse jumping. That's a class, right?

The A Circuit
Georgina Bloomberg/Catherine Hapka
2011

First things first concerning The A Circuit. I know it's trying hard to appeal to the general Gossip Girl set, but let me say now that if you don't know what Ariats are, you will be lost in this book. Just put the book down now, go find some other rich girl clique YA lit and move on with your life. This book assumes first and foremost that the horse obsessed -- hell, the experienced and knowledgeable horse obsessed -- teen girl is its audience. Expect no horsey explanations, because there are none. Therefore, I'm not going to even bother defining Ariats.

Second, this book undermines itself. But wait, let's back up and look at what we're dealing with. We've got three characters:

Tommi: She's a billionaire's daughter and spends most of her time trying to prove that she's a hard worker. She didn't just rise to the top of an insanely expensive sport because her daddy has money! She just wishes people would understand how hard she works because horses are her life and if they, you know, wind up not being her life she'll go to Georgetown or something.

Kate: She's the money poor, determined, worker bee, rise above all challenges character that is required in all horse literature. I actually liked her, even though she's sort of a doormat. Her issue is she doesn't think she's ever good enough, maybe she has OCD, and she's got a crush on the barn womanizer.

Zara: If the two previous characters are cliches, she is the cliche to end them all. The daughter of a rock star and an actress, we're supposed to pick up on her anger and loneliness that drives her complete and intolerable batshit crazy, but mainly I kept thinking batshit! Kill it with fire! Mainly, she makes an ass of herself repeatedly.

So, that's what we've got. There is little plot to speak of outside of Tommi and Kate acting sane and rational within expected horse book standards while Zara is given all the actions of the villain. Unfortunately we're forced to listen to her bitch and moan for at least a fourth of the book because someone decided she should be a main character. This is pretty gutsy, but the author(s) completely failed to realize that characters like Zara need to grow or have some redeeming quality we can latch on to so we don't completely hate them. And I hated Zara. Not because she a) cannot ride (because she can't...wow, she really can't), b) is a completely ridiculous brat prone to literal temper tantrums, and c) actually smokes in the barn. None of those things actually annoy me. What pisses me off is that there are no consequences for this character. None, even as the evidence of her raging stupidity is plain to see in broad daylight and other characters recognize and react negatively. Still, nothing. So when the other characters are whispering about how Zara's going to get kicked out and the trainer is serious and professional and won't take Zara's shit, I eventually react by thinking lies! This book is lying to me, and it's doing a poor job.

Also, the brouhaha leading up to the completely irrational non-ending of this book is ridiculous. For what reason would anyone cover for Zara after she flagrantly and drunkenly injured a virtual stranger's horse? Why are they all not kicking her out on her ass? Oh, because she's a main character. That's why.

I skimmed through Zara's sections to save myself the torture, but Tommi and Kate were passable. The book would have been hugely helped had someone actually knocked Zara around a little bit, because as it stands I felt only frustration and I'm pretty sure that was the driving motivation behind my reading it while scowling and then typing this review at 1am. I won't be reading the rest in this series, which is unfortunate because the author(s) are clearly horse knowledgeable and there is a remarkable and refreshing lack of sappy girl/wonder pony forever friendship love HOORAY BUTTERFLIES. I just don't think I can stand by while Zara inevitably lights the barn on fire and everyone notices but she still doesn't get arrested for arson.

So, yeah. Zara ruined it for me. Sorry, folks!

Also: brand name count! I tallied 22 brands, which is actually far less than I was expecting. The book expends most of them in the first couple of chapters, but someone in this writer duo (or should I just say Catherine Hapka? I mean, we're all thinking it, right?) brought it under control. 

And that, you guys, is my first horse book in...yeah, I don't even know. I'll just say "a while" and leave it at that.

Upcoming: more fun in the YA department

My Favorite Mistake: An A-Circuit Novel
March 13, 2012

Tommi, Zara, and Kate are all elite riders on the A Circuit. Tommi, the billionaire heiress, is training a young horse to prove she can make horses a real career. But when her new beau, Alex, convinces her to skip a horse show to party in the Hamptons, the results could be disastrous. Zara, the celebutante wild child, is finally taking her riding seriously. Until the new “nanny” her dad hires threatens to upstage Zara’s party girl status. Then there’s Kate. She doesn’t have money to burn like the others, but she does have Fitz, the barn’s resident hot guy. But when the pressure of being a working student builds, Kate’s perfectionist tendencies threaten to get in the way of her relationship and her riding. 

Note: This is specifically being marketed toward girls who have "outgrown" Canterwood Crest, and as I read that I was appalled. Just how old are these kids now? What the hell is going on? How old is this blog? *cries* Also, as an afterthought, I do have The A-Circuit sitting on my coffee table. I'm prepared to read it while keeping a running tally of how many brands get name dropped per chapter. I'm excited!

The Scorpio Races
October 18, 2011

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

Note: This is a blurb? She's in no way prepared? For what? Conflict? The plot? Well, color me intrigued. Okay, look. I'm not a fan of Shiver. I kind of got a third or a fourth or something into that book and rolled my eyes so hard there was no hope of recovery. Now the author has run off and written some young adult paranormal/dystopia/romance/horse book thing, creating MUCH INTERNAL ANGST because this is like a cocktail of all my guilty pleasures. Thanks a lot, Maggie.

Pam's Bitchy BFF Adventure

I have no lead in, let's just get right to it, shall we?



Pony Camp vol. 2
Pam's Trail Riding Adventure
by Susan Saunders

The trail can be a scary place to ride...

Everyone at Pony Camp is looking forward to the trail ride - everyone except Pam.

Pam's terrified because her slow, steady horse is hurt, and she has to ride Dandy - the wildest horse in the stable.

Pam needs help from her best friend, Jessie, but Jessie won't help her. She's mad at Pam for being nice to nasty Lisa Harris.

But on the trail, it's Lisa Harris who needs help - and Pam is the only one who can save her. Will Pam be brave enough to rescue Lisa?

Jeez, this synopsis is even more wrong that the first one was. Let us count the ways...

In this book we get a change from Jessie's POV to Pam Werner's. This is not the relief you might be hoping for, as Jessie is still a ginormous beyotch, but we'll get to that. Pam here is not too thrilled with Pony Camp, but being a weak willed thing, she can't say no to Jessie. So in spite of having nightmares about riding runaway horses, she hauls her ass to camp every day, not telling Jessie that she is, in fact, quite nervous around thousand pound animals, because that would make her a total wimp and she would lose her special title of "Jessie's Bitch." Yep.

Anyway, Pam's horse, Gracie, the sleepy chestnut mare, somehow does herself an injury, and has to rest for two weeks. Her replacement is Dandy, who everyone treats like Horse Jesus or something. He's an Arabian show horse and he's- I quote- "the color of coffee ice cream, with a vanilla mane and tail and a white diamond on his forehead."

Lisa Harris happens to walk by and instantly gets all hot for Dandy, trying to bully her way to being his rider. When she finds out Pam will be riding Dandy, she says the best (and by that I mean worst) line she has in the whole trilogy, "What a total waste of excellent horseflesh!" WTF? Who talks like that?

So after an awkward first lesson on Dandy, Pam comes to find out that her mother has invited Lisa's BFF Sally to spend the night. This apparently is the worst thing ever, because Pam is all upset, Jessie gets pissy at Pam, and Lisa is out to get Pam. Wow. Top it all off with news that the camp is going on their first trail ride, it is officially the worst day of Pam's life.

We get more of Jessie being a bitch for a while, because obviously Pam wants to be BFFs with Sally, and everyone knows you can only be friends with Jessie. It is a full. time. job, people. Then... the sleepover.

Pam and Sally both confess to being afraid of horses, and get along pretty well, until the next morning when they arrive at camp and Sally runs back to Lisa. This is apparently all Jessie needs to forgive Pam for her terrible deeds. At least until Lisa shows up and tells Jessie that Pam is scared of horses, and Jessie's a big meanie face for making her be there. Jessie, what else, gets pissy at Pam and storms off. Lisa then informs Pam that Dandy will runaway with her on the trail.

Pam confesses to her instructor, Diana, that she's afraid of horses, and terrified that Dandy will bolt with her on the trail ride. Diana points out the absurdity of the camp buying a runaway and putting a beginner on him, then points out that Pam has gained a lot of confidence around horses since first starting out. She then teaches Pam about horse body language, which somehow makes Pam feel all better. She even grows a pair and tells Lisa to get out of her face, regaining a tiny amount of approval from Jessie. They make up and it's all beautiful and whatnot.

So what happens to Lisa? You know, the synopsis was all, "Will Pam be brave enough to rescue Lisa?" The answer is no. Not that Pam isn't brave enough, it's just that she herself doesn't rescue Lisa from anything. Lisa's horse lays down to roll in the stream, and Lisa's instructor pulls her off her horse before he rolled over on her. And Pam, Jessie, Maxine, and Peter ride away laughing about it. The end.

Things of note:

Jessie is one of the bitchiest characters I've EVER read, and in horse literature that is saying something. We are talking bitchier than Cindy you guys. The only thing worse is how Pam bends over and takes it.

I'm not sure why Peter exists. He did literally nothing in this book, or any of them really. It's a trilogy that focuses of the three girls, Peter doesn't get his own book, he barely gets any story at all.

Two down, one to go...

Canada takes things seriously, okay?

Sometimes we all make silly choices.

Such as the choice I made last weekend to buy season two of The Adventures of the Black Stallion because it was $5 at Target. And with the remains of my gift card, that made it free. You know, that beautiful word I look for when hunting for horse-themed anything. Free.

Today I popped in a disc and reveled in the cracktasticness of this thoroughly horrible show. Today we will be discussing the episode Almost Home, because Alec and The Black have finished up with their French shenanigans and have decided to head on back to the good 'ol U.S. of A.

Only they are diverted to Canada, where our merry story will take place.

Alec starts off this episode by summing up his time in France. Oh, there was beautiful sightseeing and chances to meet new people, plus lots of fun new challenges like steeplechases and running from people on motorcycles and accidentally setting off a box of grenades that cause magical things like money showers! Ah, those silly, silly French! What a wonderous people!

However, all good things must come to an end, and so our band of heroes accidentally lands in Canada. For some reason, The Black must spend some amount of time in quarantine as they wait for their next flight. The vet at the quarantine center spends his time telling his helper son that he's an idiot, causing him to do pseudo-abusive things like throwing grain at horses. The horror.

Meanwhile, Nicole (French bandit/stable worker) has hidden herself in a pile of shrink wrapped cargo. How she survived is questionable, but she pops out and says, "America! I will find my lost father here, surely!" And Alec says, "Yeah, actually this is Canada. Good job, Nicole."  Then he walks off laughing. He's such a great friend.

Over at the quarantine facility, after Alec has yelled that he's not supposed to be here and the vet has helpfully informed him that he is, in fact, here, Julien the stable hand has taken the horses hostage with noise makers and a water gun. This is his domain! Bow to Julien and his party supplies! The Black, of course, immediately attracts his outrage. There's...noise made in the stallion's direction. It was probably shocking and horrible. There was probably glitter involved. Later on, Alec decides to exercise The Black, who takes that moment to attack Julien. Julien dives under a truck and The Black literally tries to crawl underneath it so he can punch the guy in the face with his hoof.

This results in The Black visiting the time out chair (ie, a small wooden box). Alec is appalled and begins to hatch a plan to bust The Black out of a government facility. Julien breaks out his taser, but he's too busy monologuing to The Black about how he feels so powerless and unloved to actually use it before Alec crawls through a window and tackles him. The Black gets out of his time out chair, stomps on Julien, who submits and cries about how he'll never be a vet. No one loves him. He should just be punched in the face!

Alec, after thoroughly kicking the crap out of him, decides that he's above punching Julien in the face. The vet is fired. Julien is helped off by a confused bystander. The Black is probably released from quarantine early, or it's possible that Alec and Nicole ride double on The Black's back, gloriously romping through the Canadian countryside on their way to the border, which we all know no one cared about in the early 90s. I'm sure they rode like the wind.

Hold on to your butts as Jessie Takes the Reins

Oh my God the Pony Camp trilogy. Just... my. God. Remember those books you read as a kid, the ones you loved but gave away for some reason, leaving them to ferment in your memories until you know you know that book, but can't exactly remember it? These are those books for me. I swear I must have had them damn near memorized at one point, but they hit the table at some garage sale or another. As I was putzing around the interwebs I unintentionally rediscovered them. Of course I HAD to order them. I mean, the nostalgia!!



Pony Camp vol. 1
Jessie Takes the Reins
by Susan Saunders

Will Jessie ever learn how to ride?

Jessie has always wanted to learn how to ride a horse. Now she's going to pony camp to meet the beautiful horse of her dreams. But Ranger isn't what Jessie expected.

He's spotted. He's stubborn. He's short.

And he doesn't like Jessie any more than she likes him!

Jessie wanted to be a great rider overnight. But learning to ride Ranger is really hard. What's worse, snobby Maxine from Jessie's third-grade class is a great rider who thinks she knows everything. Will Jessie need help from bossy Maxine to make her dream come true?

That's a long ass synopsis for a 90 page book, and it's not really all that accurate. Awesome.

So eight year old - I MEAN EIGHT AND A HALF since she mentions it twice on the first page (God it's first person narrative) - Jessie Johnson is a horse fanatic who's going to pony camp (no really?). She's also an idiot, but I'm getting ahead of myself. She's "read every horse book in the library, so I'm an expert on horses."

Jessie and her BFF Pam are off to this day camp where Jessie KNOWS you guys that she's going from beginner to expert in like five minutes, because she knows EVERYTHING about horses. Yep. She has wet dreams over the huge black thoroughbred that will be her magikal steed, named Thunder or something equally cliche.

Anyway, Jessie and Pam and put in a group with a fat boy named Peter, who is fat and messy and has a stupid haircut and eats candy all the time and ISN'T JESSIE'S NARRATIVE A GEM YOU GUYS? As well as Maxine who is neat and tidy and a good student and bad at sports and therefore a huge bitch and Jessie and Pam hate her OMG. Seriously, we get a lot of info about why Maxine is hate worthy. I mean, when Jessie hears Maxine has been taking riding lessons for a few months and is a natural, Jessie nearly shits her pants over how much that CAN'T be true.

So THEN Jessie meets the horse she's been assigned, an Appaloosa named Ranger. And apparently a spotted horse is a world ending situation, because while a black horse or a white horse would be an appropriate mount for little miss bitch, I mean bitch, I MEAN JESSIE - a black and white horse is OMG ugly kill it with fire.

But Ranger has the sense to be unimpressed with Jessie as well, and when Jessie utterly fails at EVERYTHING Jessie declares the HORSE has an attitude problem.

But if there isn't enough drama for you yet, we get introduced to our main antagonists, Kevin and Lisa Harris, and Lisa's BFF Sally. They're pretty much carbon copies of every horse book antagonist EVER. Except they really don't do anything in this book except trash talk. More on that later.

So the first time Jessie get's in the saddle she closes her eyes and lifts into a jump position and Ranger has the GALL to MOVE HIS HEAD A LITTLE BIT WHILE STANDING STILL. Jessie is ill prepared to handle such a wild movement and is pulled out of the saddle and onto his neck. Clearly this horse is out to get her. The first time they try a trot Jessie falls off and demands a new horse because Ranger is horse Satan or something.

So then there's some more smack talking from the Harris siblings that culminates in a swimming race which our "heroes" win. I fail to see the point.

And finally, Jessie happens to see an older rider taking Ranger over some jumps and gets all hot for the horse and decides to keep riding him instead of another horse, which Ranger is no doubt thrilled over. And we are treated to a saccharine ending in which Jessie comes to realize that she IS in fact a beginner. Gasp.

Things of note:

None of our four are typical horse book protagonists. Jessie and Pam are good students who love playing sports of all kinds. Maxine is very neat and tidy. Peter is... um... well, he doesn't really count.

The synopsis led me to believe that Maxine was the antagonist. And Pam and Jessie go on and on about what a bitch she is before she actually shows up in the book. Their proof of her bitchiness is: she's clean, bad at sports, and quiet. From the moment she appears she obviously has low self esteem, tries hard to be nice and helpful, and never comes across as condescending despite the fact that she OBVIOUSLY is a more knowledgeable and experienced rider.

Jessie is a bitch to her own BFF, getting mad at her for asking dumb questions and getting impatient with her for being nervous around horses. OUR HERO YOU ALL.

So obviously this thing doesn't coast on nostalgia, but then again as I read it I was reminded of the fact that I thought Jessie was a know it all bitch even when I myself was a young horse crazy child, so there you go.

War Horse (teaser trailer)