Vivienne Taylor is the new scholarship
student at Fairmont Riding Academy, a top-level school that prepares
equestriennes for the Olympics. Vivienne is a very talented rider,
but she's the scholarship student and the in-crowd isn't about to
give her an easy time. The boys have a wager about who will have sex
with with her first and the girls exhibit typical teenage bitchiness.
Vivienne has a special talent. She
communicates with horses. All horses that is, but the horse she's
been assigned. Harmony is beautiful, but completely silent. She
belonged to the school veterinarian who died just before Vivienne
arrived. Could the death have something to do with Harmony's silence?
This book is aimed at young adult
readers. I didn't find the sexual element out of place considering
today's teens, but some people may be offended by it. The mystery is
fair, but the author spends so much time on the romantic problems of
the teenagers that the solution to the mystery seems rushed at the
end.
The story is told from three points of
view: Vivienne and two of the boys, one of whom is very interested in
her. I found following three points of view took away from the
intensity of Vivienne's story and solving the mystery.
Although it's a horse book, I found the
emphasis more on teen romance than horse activities, although we do
get more at the end. I also found some of the horse related scenes
misleading. In the first scene, Vivienne's mother, a veterinarian,
treats a horse that has apparently eaten or drunk something poisonous
in the pasture. She decides the horse and two other horses on the
property are being abused and decides to rescue them. Generally,
horse rescue is not as easy as making off with the horses in the
middle of the night. Legal actions are usually required. Simply
taking the horses can be construed as stealing. I don't want to ride
this too much, but I think it gives the wrong idea about the
complexity of horse ownership and horse rescue.
If you love horses and read everything
about them, you may enjoy this book, but it has a number of drawbacks
that keep it from being one of my favorites.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon
Vine Program.
No comments:
Post a Comment