I can thank Kaye for this book. I read The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls before and really loved it. I'm very fond of memoirs, you see. I assumed Half Broke Horses would be along the same lines, but it wasn't at all. First, it wasn't her memoir, but her grandmother's as imagined by Walls. I didn't find out until the end that her grandmother had died when she was only eight, so these stories had all been passed down by her mother. It was written as if her grandmother was writing, but there was so little detail that you could tell it wasn't a real first person account. Each segment of story was very short, which was fun and really great for the train. I never had to stop in the middle of a chapter.Her grandmother led a very interesting life, thus this was quite an interesting read. She grew up on a ranch breaking horses, moved to Chicago for a brief time, then back to the wild west to become a teacher, ranch manager and back to teacher. She was a tough lady who could roll with the punches.
Although I didn't like it as much as The Glass Castle (I think I enjoy books that make me grateful for my childhood) it was still a good read that I wouldn't hesitate to suggest!
- Megan Leigh
2 comments:
I really liked this one. I didn't know it was her grandmother until the end. I didn't read the back cover of the book. She was an amazing woman. And you get to see how her daughter and husband started out, which was fun.
I also didn't know that this was the grandmother until the end! I just got it because it was the same author of Glass Castle. I never read the back of books (or watch the scenes in commericals that show what is going to happen next week). I don't want to know up front what is going to happen. I liked this book too for it's short little chapters.
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