Post by tintin on Jun 21, 2011 13:25:13 GMT 1
Summary – Cammie is a 13 year old girl who lives in the Virginia countryside with her mother and father. She has moved out of Washington DC for health reasons. She is a member of the Pony Club attached to the local hunt and rides a black pony called Sabrina, a mare belonging to Missy her Riding Instructor and neighbour. Sabrina is a challenging mount.
The central thread of the story is the club’s progress to representing its state and winning its class in a national pony club competition. There are several sub-plots and numerous scrapes along the way. There is a latent attraction between Cammie and Win, the 19 year old son of the local squire and MFH.
Review – I am not entirely sure what I thought of this book. It is quite fast paced. It is also very episodic and some of the episodes are much better than others.
I’ll be positive and start with what I liked about it.
They say write about what you know. The author was a great fox hunter writing an adult novel described by one critic as the "Gone with the Wind" of hunting. The episode in the hunting field where Cammie heads of a loose horse is one of the most gripping things I have read in any adventure/sporting or horse novel.
I was very interested in the hunt scene in the US which, like a lot of things in the US is at first very familiar, but then surprises you with something utterly different. It is almost impossible to imagine an English fox hunt de-camping en masse at the end of a day’s sport to a basket ball match at a ladies college. The basket ball game itself is strange enough to British eyes.
I also liked the day where Cammie rushes from thing to thing and forgets to eat. I did stuff like that when I was that age.
Although at one point I thought – "Oh no not another naturally gifted rider from nowhere who amazes everyone with their innate skill" – Cammie does have to work at it despite being a bit of a prodigy.
The author is also a vivid writer and it is easy to visualise what she is writing about.
What I liked less. I did n’t really take to the heroine. Sorry. Mind you adolescent girls are a bit of a closed book to me. However, I don’t have this problem with other young ladies in pony books quite so much. Perhaps its because they are more horse focused, perhaps it’s a nationality thing. I did n’t dislike her, just felt curiously detached from her. Jackie in the Judith Berrisford books is about the same age, but, although more juvenile is less immature (if you can understand what I mean by that). Cammie I think lacks what the Army calls “grip” whereas Jackie has loads of it. This is a bit odd as Cammie has, in the previous book, trained a horse which defied all others.
What I really did n’t like was the ending as a middle aged man I found it upsetting, quite what the target readership must think I don’t know. After the heart warming victory in the competition and the squire’s lovely wedding the squire’s son is a patronising git to Cammie. I wanted to take him outside and slap him about a bit and tell him to go and mess with the heads of girls his own age. I did n’t warm to him in the book and really started to loathe him at the end – I think he’s an idiot (that’s very censored). The sequel is a bit dear for me to buy to find out what happens, but I hope he gets his comeuppance. I was n’t keen on his rival the show jumper either. Mind you many male show jumpers seem to love themselves a bit much.
The central thread of the story is the club’s progress to representing its state and winning its class in a national pony club competition. There are several sub-plots and numerous scrapes along the way. There is a latent attraction between Cammie and Win, the 19 year old son of the local squire and MFH.
Review – I am not entirely sure what I thought of this book. It is quite fast paced. It is also very episodic and some of the episodes are much better than others.
I’ll be positive and start with what I liked about it.
They say write about what you know. The author was a great fox hunter writing an adult novel described by one critic as the "Gone with the Wind" of hunting. The episode in the hunting field where Cammie heads of a loose horse is one of the most gripping things I have read in any adventure/sporting or horse novel.
I was very interested in the hunt scene in the US which, like a lot of things in the US is at first very familiar, but then surprises you with something utterly different. It is almost impossible to imagine an English fox hunt de-camping en masse at the end of a day’s sport to a basket ball match at a ladies college. The basket ball game itself is strange enough to British eyes.
I also liked the day where Cammie rushes from thing to thing and forgets to eat. I did stuff like that when I was that age.
Although at one point I thought – "Oh no not another naturally gifted rider from nowhere who amazes everyone with their innate skill" – Cammie does have to work at it despite being a bit of a prodigy.
The author is also a vivid writer and it is easy to visualise what she is writing about.
What I liked less. I did n’t really take to the heroine. Sorry. Mind you adolescent girls are a bit of a closed book to me. However, I don’t have this problem with other young ladies in pony books quite so much. Perhaps its because they are more horse focused, perhaps it’s a nationality thing. I did n’t dislike her, just felt curiously detached from her. Jackie in the Judith Berrisford books is about the same age, but, although more juvenile is less immature (if you can understand what I mean by that). Cammie I think lacks what the Army calls “grip” whereas Jackie has loads of it. This is a bit odd as Cammie has, in the previous book, trained a horse which defied all others.
What I really did n’t like was the ending as a middle aged man I found it upsetting, quite what the target readership must think I don’t know. After the heart warming victory in the competition and the squire’s lovely wedding the squire’s son is a patronising git to Cammie. I wanted to take him outside and slap him about a bit and tell him to go and mess with the heads of girls his own age. I did n’t warm to him in the book and really started to loathe him at the end – I think he’s an idiot (that’s very censored). The sequel is a bit dear for me to buy to find out what happens, but I hope he gets his comeuppance. I was n’t keen on his rival the show jumper either. Mind you many male show jumpers seem to love themselves a bit much.