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128 reviews for:
The Sport of Kings: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
C.E. Morgan
3.52 AVERAGE
128 reviews for:
The Sport of Kings: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
C.E. Morgan
3.52 AVERAGE
I loved this book and if it doesn't win the Pulitzer I will eat my hat.
I need to talk about it with someone!
I need to talk about it with someone!
I'm DNFing this book. I've given it about 150 pages, but there's still no discernible plot. I enjoy the prose. The descriptions of setting are stellar, but it's just too much. It's like the author couldn't decide what to describe, so she just detailed everything. I think maybe it's because I know horses and horse racing, and so it's not a foreign world to me.
"Do you prefer your tales lean, muscular, and dry, leached of excess and honed to a single, digestible point? Have I exceeded the bounds of the form, committed a literary sin? I say there's no such thing - any striving is calcined ash before the heat of the ever-expanding world, its interminability and brightness, which is neither yours nor mine. There aren't too many words; there aren't enough words; ten thousand books, all the world's dictionaries and there would never be enough; we're infants before the Ohio coursing its ancient way, the icy display of aurora borealis and the redundancies of the night sky..."
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The blurb of the book was bad and inaccurate.
The first half of the book is basically just 3 character studies. It was unexpected, but they were very well-written, so I'm not too upset about it.
It did feel slow at times, and it probably could have been 100 pages shorter without missing anything. The book stayed long with characters that weren't relevant.
The blurb doesn't mention it, but be aware that there are times in the book when it takes place at a time when enslavement was legal, and the characters followed during this period are either slavers or escaped enslaved people. Not only is there a lot of bigotry in the book, but there is also some incest, and the book keeps reminding the reader of that.
The book was fine, not bad, not good, but the blurb was very misleading, so don't go just of off that.
The first half of the book is basically just 3 character studies. It was unexpected, but they were very well-written, so I'm not too upset about it.
It did feel slow at times, and it probably could have been 100 pages shorter without missing anything. The book stayed long with characters that weren't relevant.
The blurb doesn't mention it, but be aware that there are times in the book when it takes place at a time when enslavement was legal, and the characters followed during this period are either slavers or escaped enslaved people. Not only is there a lot of bigotry in the book, but there is also some incest, and the book keeps reminding the reader of that.
The book was fine, not bad, not good, but the blurb was very misleading, so don't go just of off that.
I was blown away by most of this book. I would have enjoyed it even more with some serious editing. Some of it (the early Interludes?) were just plain over my head. And when the plot got really rolling along, often it was stalled by too many words, descriptions, explanations, thought processes, intellectualisms, tangents - which left me confused and frustrated.
the ending did not satisfy - it went off the rails.
Other than that - an amazing, impressive, intelligent, crazy pot-boiler of a smart deep novel.
the ending did not satisfy - it went off the rails.
Other than that - an amazing, impressive, intelligent, crazy pot-boiler of a smart deep novel.
this is SO good. a really brutal but still sensitive look at class, race, and inheritance in the American South. can't believe Morgan only has one other book published
Wow, what a book! Told with beautiful prose, this family saga with complex characters is about family, tradition, slavery, racism, horses, and horse racing....and that barely scratches the surface of this novel. It was full of surprises, interesting characters, and horse races that had me on the edge of my seat. I've been thoroughly engrossed in this for the past week and was sorry to come to the end.
I did not know much about horse racing and, to be frank, I was not attracted to this topic. In the end of the day, I enjoyed learning about it and it is the book's theme. Most importantly, it is a family saga with beautifully crafted characters, a complex storyline and stupendous writing (ah, the writing, loved it!).
Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK for an ebook advance copy in return for an honest review.
Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK for an ebook advance copy in return for an honest review.
Ballsy.
Morgan writes a book that in many ways parallels the filly at the forefront of the tale. It starts from behind in the sense the reader isn't quite sure what kind of writer this is going to be or whether the book is really going to engage. But before you know it, the plot is galloping along full bore, and suddenly you, as a reader, have a sensation that the whole thing could derail. It's as though the author has so many talents that she doesn't know which ones to bring to bear and when, making the whole novel simultaneously brilliant and terribly flawed. Honestly, it felt a little bit like reading a collaboration of V.C. Andrews, the screen writers for "Dallas" and Wallace Stegner, or perhaps James Michener. Yeah, hard to imagine, right?
To further complicate matters, the themes are big ones - - power, racism, sexism, and family. Morgan also spans huge chunks of time so there's a sense that the book is epic in scope.
I'd say there's a five star book in here, but I don't really think there is. What there is, is a five star author who when she harnesses her power and exercises a little more restraint, is going to write something super brilliant, and I'm excited to see what it is. Hopefully she didn't exhaust herself completely with this effort.
The plot really focuses on three main characters, Henry, his daughter, Henrietta, and Allmon, a groom. We get the back story on all three, and the characters are all interesting if not terribly likable. Henry, going against the wishes of his father, turns his inherited farm into a horse breeding facility, and he sees Henrietta as the heir to all he has worked for and the family name. Henrietta seems compliant, but is in fact, pretty wild and rebellious, and this rebellion ensnares Allmon in a pretty untenable situation. Something he is familiar with because nothing in his life has gone well, and I do mean nothing.
The critic in me wasn't totally wild about the long passages of description which are beautifully rendered, but would have been more impactful in smaller doses. The author really shows her talents here, but it does slow the pace and make you want to skim.
This book won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction in 2016. It was up against the nominees listed here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/2016-kirkus-prize-finalists/. I've only read two of the books on the list. I most certainly think this one was much better than [b:The Underground Railroad|30555488|The Underground Railroad|Colson Whitehead|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1493178362s/30555488.jpg|48287641] which addresses similar subject matter in many ways, although perhaps harder to get through due to the length and some of the description. [b:A Gentleman in Moscow|29430012|A Gentleman in Moscow|Amor Towles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459524472s/29430012.jpg|45743836] was tighter and more polished, and for me, more enjoyable to read overall. But this author absolutely is showing more flashes of brilliance and potential so I can see why this one won.
This book would be outstanding for a book club discussion, but unfortunately, half the club probably won't finish it.
Morgan writes a book that in many ways parallels the filly at the forefront of the tale. It starts from behind in the sense the reader isn't quite sure what kind of writer this is going to be or whether the book is really going to engage. But before you know it, the plot is galloping along full bore, and suddenly you, as a reader, have a sensation that the whole thing could derail. It's as though the author has so many talents that she doesn't know which ones to bring to bear and when, making the whole novel simultaneously brilliant and terribly flawed. Honestly, it felt a little bit like reading a collaboration of V.C. Andrews, the screen writers for "Dallas" and Wallace Stegner, or perhaps James Michener. Yeah, hard to imagine, right?
To further complicate matters, the themes are big ones - - power, racism, sexism, and family. Morgan also spans huge chunks of time so there's a sense that the book is epic in scope.
I'd say there's a five star book in here, but I don't really think there is. What there is, is a five star author who when she harnesses her power and exercises a little more restraint, is going to write something super brilliant, and I'm excited to see what it is. Hopefully she didn't exhaust herself completely with this effort.
The plot really focuses on three main characters, Henry, his daughter, Henrietta, and Allmon, a groom. We get the back story on all three, and the characters are all interesting if not terribly likable. Henry, going against the wishes of his father, turns his inherited farm into a horse breeding facility, and he sees Henrietta as the heir to all he has worked for and the family name. Henrietta seems compliant, but is in fact, pretty wild and rebellious, and this rebellion ensnares Allmon in a pretty untenable situation. Something he is familiar with because nothing in his life has gone well, and I do mean nothing.
The critic in me wasn't totally wild about the long passages of description which are beautifully rendered, but would have been more impactful in smaller doses. The author really shows her talents here, but it does slow the pace and make you want to skim.
This book won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction in 2016. It was up against the nominees listed here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/2016-kirkus-prize-finalists/. I've only read two of the books on the list. I most certainly think this one was much better than [b:The Underground Railroad|30555488|The Underground Railroad|Colson Whitehead|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1493178362s/30555488.jpg|48287641] which addresses similar subject matter in many ways, although perhaps harder to get through due to the length and some of the description. [b:A Gentleman in Moscow|29430012|A Gentleman in Moscow|Amor Towles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459524472s/29430012.jpg|45743836] was tighter and more polished, and for me, more enjoyable to read overall. But this author absolutely is showing more flashes of brilliance and potential so I can see why this one won.
This book would be outstanding for a book club discussion, but unfortunately, half the club probably won't finish it.