yasminwooldridge 's review for:

Chasing Painted Horses by Drew Hayden Taylor

3.0

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A curious and very well written story, but there feels like something is missing. I'm not sure how the character Harry really added anything to this story. He seems to me to be an unnecessary accessory. Apart from prodding Ralph to move the narrative along he doesn't do anything much and I'm not even sure if Ralph really told Harry about Danielle or they just stared at each other in Tim Horton's. The reader felt more drawn to the men/boys in this story than the women, in fact the women were oddly muted. There was no sympathy garnered toward Hazel for her grief as that seemed more like an after thought for bad choices. If anything she comes across as entirely to blame, as a mother, to how she behaved toward her child. Although Danielle said her need and her want for Horse came from the book she received as a prize for the Everything Wall the horse was created before she read that book. Where did Horse come from originally? Why a horse? There still seemed to be more questions than answers as to why things were the way they were. Why were Danielle's family on the outskirts of the community? Didn't they have family near them. Everything seems to me to be unfinished in terms of who these characters were and why they did what they did. Why was Ralph friendly to William? If he had other friends why was there no interactions between them? Why did Shelley's friends express surprise but not vocalise their surprise? While I know for brevity sake other characters in the book had to be a minimum, however, without fully understanding the community's dynamics it's not immediately understood that others can't have a part to play in this story. I can see that this story can be considered a coming of age story, but somehow it doesn't leave this reader feeling satisfied at a story told as well as it could be.