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Half Broke Horses A TrueLife Novel Jeannette Walls Books

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Half Broke Horses A TrueLife Novel Jeannette Walls Books

J.Walls is an excellent writer, best book Glass Castle, but this is a close second. If I were reading again I would read this before Glass Castle.
Lily Casey Smith was a true woman to be looked up to...She grew up on ranches, training horses but realized as she got older that she would not inherit the ranch as a brother would but she let nothing get her down and found her way through life. "One door closes, another opens"
Walls keeps you reading from the first page. I learned so much about ranching in different places, women's place in society there, Indian information etc but in no way is this a boring information book. I cannot say enough about it. Please read!


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Half Broke Horses A TrueLife Novel Jeannette Walls Books Reviews

I so looked forward to reading this book - The Glass Castle was such a beautiful and profound work, that perhaps my expectations were simply too high.

I found Half Broke Horses to be pedestrian and uninspired, full of stock characters that are disappointingly predictable and one-dimensional. The father with his head in the clouds; the languishing mother who considers herself above their hard-scratch life; the philandering salesman who two-times his wife; the sister who goes to Hollywood, gets pregnant, and hangs herself in the kitchen; and - of course - the scrappy heroine who's simply faster, better, smarter and sassier than just about everyone in her life, you betcha.

Beyond this, the story itself has no core. I kept waiting for the random events to coalesce into the revelation of some deeper truth or insight, as Walls so adeptly developed in her first book. It never happened; instead, we were presented with a pedantic timeline of events and often pointless anecdotes in one woman's life - strung together with no perceivable higher purpose. As I slowly realized that there was no "there" there - and never would be - my interest waned and I moved quickly through the story to its end.

Given the admittedly sparse information on her grandmother's life, Walls could have taken the details at hand and used them to create a series of short stories - stand-alone depictions of a period of time - each of which could have been crafted and honed and shaped to offer thought-provoking insights upon which to reflect. Such a series of short stories could have been within the context of a collection ... each story told from a different character's viewpoint, perhaps, and with a different "voice" - yet with the cumulative effect of leaving the reader with a richer understanding of our country's pioneers, and the land that shaped them.
Her memoir sold millions of copies. Most readers loved it, but a few found it less than credible and at least one high school banned the book for its stark, raw realism. Walls follows it with this “true life” novel based on her grandmother. She says that because she had to fill in details that were hazy or missing and change a few names to protect people’s privacy—the only honest thing to do was to call this book a novel. She wrote the story in first person to capture her grandmother’s distinctive character and voice. Not an easy task, but first person works and Walls does bring her grandmother to life, a bigger-than-life character who grew up in the southwest when times were tough and life was hard. A fitting follow-up to The Glass Castle.
I started reading this book on a Friday evening and by Saturday I was more than half way done. I would describe it as a simple story about a simple person who did a lot of extraordinary stuff. The book feels good and reminds me of stories my grandparents/parents told me and of experiences I had growing up in rural North Carolina. I would describe this as a great example of oral history with the author filling in respectfully when parts of the story could not be verified. I loved this book. Absolutely loved it.
This is a good read. It contains an excellent account of how one woman made her way in life in spite of very difficult circumstances. It is especially interesting for readers who have some connection with the US southwest. Although Half Broke Horses is a novelized biography of the author's grandmother, it contains remarkable parallels with the historical fiction novel Circling the Sun by Paula McLain. While the Walls book is set primarily in New Mexico and Texas and Mclain's is in Kenya, they both feature a strong willed, socially courageous, hardworking, ranch based female protagonist in the early 20th century who loves horses and is drawn to early aviation. There are additional similarities as well as major differences in the plot lines, style, etc, of course, but both books are well done and worthy of recommendation.
J.Walls is an excellent writer, best book Glass Castle, but this is a close second. If I were reading again I would read this before Glass Castle.
Lily Casey Smith was a true woman to be looked up to...She grew up on ranches, training horses but realized as she got older that she would not inherit the ranch as a brother would but she let nothing get her down and found her way through life. "One door closes, another opens"
Walls keeps you reading from the first page. I learned so much about ranching in different places, women's place in society there, Indian information etc but in no way is this a boring information book. I cannot say enough about it. Please read!