About this title: As a world-class equestrian and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, the beautiful horse she cherished. Now, twenty years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father's New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenage daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables-and where hope lives in the eyes of the handsome, gentle veterinarian Annemarie loved ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780061241086ISBN:0061241083
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Torch
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780060580278ISBN:0060580275
Description: Grade: C. Catalog: Fiction Contemporary Synopsis: 387 pages. As a world-class equestrienne and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, ... read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"I listened to the audiobook, and the reader did a great job capturing the voices and moods of the characters. At first I had great sympathy for the protagonist, Annemarie Zimmer, who opens the book telling of the final moments riding her beloved champion horse, Harry, before he fell and ended her riding career and his life. The story jumps forward 20 years to another fateful day, when she loses her job, her husband leaves her, and her daughter is kicked out of school. Can things get any worse?
They do, and Annemarie's voice becomes whiny and self-centered, even though bad things are happening to other people, too. She goes back to her parents' farm, ostensibly to help her mother while her dad slowly dies of ALS, but her energy is consumed by a rescued horse that looks eerily like her long lost Harry. Part mystery, part romance, and mostly family drama, Riding Lessons follows Annemarie through numerous poor choices, to the point where you want to shake her and say 'stop it!' I won't give any more away, but she does have her moment of epiphany where she realizes what is most important.
It was fun to listen to, if sometimes frustrating."
"The main character of this book just doesn't have her act together and is pretty self-centered. Things fall apart around her, mostly due to her own actions. Annemarie was once an Olympic hopeful equestrienne, but a bad fall ruined her dreams and killed her horse. 20 years later, she loses her job & her marriage, her teenage daughter is rebelling, and her father is dying. So she moves back to the old farm and tries to help out. But mostly she just causes problems. I have a hard time caring whether she ends up with her old flame the veterinarian or the sexy French trainer, and the drama with her father isn't ever really resolved. There are too many tangential stories, but I did enjoy her relationship with a particular horse in the barn. That was more than enough to make me keep turning the pages and I'll likely read the follow up, Flying Changes, as an easy beachy kind of read."
"While it is obvious that Ms. Gruen has done some research on horses and equestrian activities, unfortunately the book reads somewhat like a checklist of her research findings. Because of this, I probably would have enjoyed the book much more if I were not an equestrian myself, since for me, the holes in the equine aspects of the story made the book as a whole less enjoyable.
The book opens with the terrible jumping accident that killed her beloved horse and nearly left her paralyzed, and the accident would be believable if it weren't for the list of the horse's fatal injuries: "...Harry's long pastern--the largest of the three bones between his hoof and foreleg--shattered into nine pieces." (This is believable, what follows is not): "His scapula, sternum, and pelvis were broken as well, but it was the pastern that clinched it." It appears that Ms. Gruen flipped through a horse anatomy book and picked out names of bones--it is simply not likely or reasonable that a seasoned jumper would sustain all of those injuries. The broken pastern would have been enough to require the horse to be put down.
Harry was also "striped," indicating a very very rare brindle patterning in the coat. Another very far fetched element.
Something else that is highly improbable is when the trainer, Jean-Claude, mounts a lesson horse at the family's stable, and proceeds to perform a series of dressage moves, which include a piaffe, which is believable, and then a capriole. A capriole is a very advanced dressage move performed by Lipizzan stallions in the tradition of warhorses--for a lesson horse at a training stable to perform the move is absurd. It made me think that Gruen attended a performance of the Lipizzan stallions, kept the program, and flipped through it to find elements for her book, no matter how far fetched.
Another disappointment for me as an equestrian came from her lack of knowledge about rodeo events, when her love interest and veterinarian rescues an Arabian from being tripped at Mexican rodeos, and the vet goes on to state how it can't really be banned since "cattle tripping" is held at most rodeos. I live in the West, have been to many rodeos, and have never heard of or seen an event known as "cattle tripping." There are roping events, but the least Gruen could have done is find out the correct names of the events.
Gruen's activism steps in, and a sense of preachiness seeps in when the main character's daughter, Eva, throws a fit about the production of the replacement hormone, Premarin, which is made from pregnant mare urine.
Writers have a certain obligation to make sure, even in fiction, that their subject matter is portrayed realistically, since most people's only exposure to things like FBI intrigue or equestrian events are only through the fiction books they read. Putting incorrect or improbable information out, even in the form of fiction, is irresponsible.
Determined to not let these missteps deter me completely, as I very much enjoyed "Water For Elephants," I kept reading. I may as well have not, since the writing is not spectacular, and the plot and characters are reminiscent of those in a Harlequin romance. The characters are all disappointingly flat, and the plot, while eventful (too eventful), was the stuff of made-for-TV movies, making the entire fiasco seem more of a puppet show for Gruen's pet causes than anything else.
After "Water For Elephants," I would have expected much, much better of Gruen than this. Skip it!"
"For me, the redeeming quality of this book was found in the horses. Gruen's portrayal of equine characters through the eyes of the human MC was authentic and spot-on. If nothing else, she did butt-loads of research -- but I'd like to step out on a limb (without knowing anything about the author) and venture a guess that she has at some point spent a less-than-healthy amount of time around the animals (in the opinion of a sane individual, which I am not). Having done so myself, the quality of the descriptions was sufficient to drag me in and pull me through the story, even though the MC started to seriously grate on my nerves after a bit. I wanted to know what happened to the horse and to hell with the rest of it.
Don't know that I will bother with the sequel any time soon, and this one read wasn't near enough to make me a Gruen fan. Yes it was a touching and emotional read ... but while I'm all for MC's with flaws who have internal struggles throughout the course of the story, there is a fine line where a character's flaws begin to grate on the nerves."
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