Friday, March 19, 2010

book club review

for the slow readers book club, our first book to read was Jeannette Walls' Half Broke Horses. i sped through the book and finished it quite a while ago, then realized i completely spaced writing a review.

when i first heard the name of the book, i thought "ugh. horses? really?" since one of the main reasons i joined the slow readers book club was to broaden my reading horizons, i read it anyway. and you know what? it was pretty good. the story follows Lily Casey Smith (Walls' grandmother) as she grew up learning to handle horses & a ranch, floods, teaching, raising a family and a number of other challenges. i liked that she was an extremely strong & driven woman and had no problem speaking her mind. however, i also saw that her strength was a weakness too. she seemed to have a lack of empathy for people and would force her opinion on others, especially her daughter. she could come across with the mentality that she is always right. she probably had to have that kind of stubborn attitude to survive the number of tragedies & troubles she handled. overall, i enjoyed the book and am looking forward to the next one: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin.

i'm not very good at writing reviews - in school, it was something awful. but that was my first one in quite some time. hopefully they will get better.

2 comments:

Brandi said...

I had the same reaction just now when I read the title. I'm not the type of girl who is obsessed with horses. But from your review, it sounds interesting. I can't wait to hear what you think of Alica I Have Been -- I thought that book sounded interesting when I saw it on Amazon.

And writing reviews was always hard for me too. But the more you practice, the better you get.

E said...

Very good review...you looked beyond the "she's a strong woman and that's good" theory. I can't wait to read this book...it's been on my list for quite some time.