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A review by thetomatowriter
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
5.0
Man, what a book.
I grew up as the weird horse girl and I live in Louisville, Kentucky, so when I picked this book up, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be great. The Belmont is about to happen, it's about a horse race, it's Maggie Stiefvater. What could go wrong?" I was more excited to find these were KILLER horses.
The setting, which seems to be a fictional fantasy island with a similar culture to Ireland but with water horses, is beautifully depicted and, much like I felt about Henrietta and Cabeswater, kind of a character in and of itself. The characters are all developed very clearly. You know what they want, why they want it, and what they're going to do about it. And it's so easy to sympathize. Puck is in the race at first to delay her brother's leaving for the mainland. Sean hopes to win so that he can finally buy the horse that's his in everything but deed anyway, leave his oppressive boss, and live in his father's house. It's hard to say which one you want to win the race, because you become so attached to both of them and want success for both. The book is slow to bring the two main characters together, which I personally liked, but I know others might not. It was probably nearly a hundred pages before they started to interact, but it gave Stiefvater time to develop them separately, to establish who they are as individuals and build their personal conflicts. I cared so deeply about them individually by the time they came together that it only made me care for them more as a couple.
I wasn't sure if it would be very interesting to read the race, since races are such a visible or physical thing, but she kept it interesting. Even though the moment before the race started, I knew who would probably win, and I wanted them to win, I was still on the edge of my seat. There was a very tense chapter or so that made me audibly gasp. And the very end subverted a common animal-and-the-human-that-loves-them trope in a way, maybe in a small way, but it was delightful nonetheless.
I gave this book four stars initially, because it's very rare that I give a book five stars, but the more I thought about it, there was no reason why I felt it should be any less than five stars, so ehre we are.
I grew up as the weird horse girl and I live in Louisville, Kentucky, so when I picked this book up, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be great. The Belmont is about to happen, it's about a horse race, it's Maggie Stiefvater. What could go wrong?" I was more excited to find these were KILLER horses.
The setting, which seems to be a fictional fantasy island with a similar culture to Ireland but with water horses, is beautifully depicted and, much like I felt about Henrietta and Cabeswater, kind of a character in and of itself. The characters are all developed very clearly. You know what they want, why they want it, and what they're going to do about it. And it's so easy to sympathize. Puck is in the race at first to delay her brother's leaving for the mainland. Sean hopes to win so that he can finally buy the horse that's his in everything but deed anyway, leave his oppressive boss, and live in his father's house. It's hard to say which one you want to win the race, because you become so attached to both of them and want success for both. The book is slow to bring the two main characters together, which I personally liked, but I know others might not. It was probably nearly a hundred pages before they started to interact, but it gave Stiefvater time to develop them separately, to establish who they are as individuals and build their personal conflicts. I cared so deeply about them individually by the time they came together that it only made me care for them more as a couple.
I wasn't sure if it would be very interesting to read the race, since races are such a visible or physical thing, but she kept it interesting. Even though the moment before the race started, I knew who would probably win, and I wanted them to win, I was still on the edge of my seat. There was a very tense chapter or so that made me audibly gasp. And the very end subverted a common animal-and-the-human-that-loves-them trope in a way, maybe in a small way, but it was delightful nonetheless.
I gave this book four stars initially, because it's very rare that I give a book five stars, but the more I thought about it, there was no reason why I felt it should be any less than five stars, so ehre we are.