bookishwendy 's review for:

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

4.0

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Rounded up from 3.5. This YA read stands out from the pack for its prose, atmosphere and slow-burning romance. It struck a nostalgiac nerve for me in it's unabashed horsiness, bringing back fond memories of the Black Stallion Books and Misty of Chincoteague, but with an almost Wicker Man kind of twist. Scorpio Races is the rare paranormal book for teens where the paranormal isn't the point. In fact, the fantasy element--carnivorous horses from the sea--struck me as unnecessary and a bit pointless, though obviously it's the primary selling point. I personally find horse racing and horses in general to be inherently dangerous, and adding the whole people-eating aspect to an already dangerous horse race that exists because... Tradition (even though half the young men on this remote British island seem to die every year in this race, for no good reason, and with little emotional impact on the reader). Actually, just a tad more Wicker Man would have made the premise work for me, if the yearly race appeased these hungry water horses and kept them away...but they seem to be eating livestock and people, race or no. How is this island still inhabited?

Minor gripes aside, I quite liked the tentative interaction of the two main characters, and I'm glad some of the usual horse-race tropes were reversed. I loved that Puck had the chance to aquire one of the fleet-footed waterhorses but instead of training an impossibly wild mount herself, she sticks to her old "pony" instead. Though if she did as well as all that, maybe waterhorses aren't quite the amazing mounts of myth after all. As both our main characters are vying for the same prize, there's an uncertainty about who will win, with bittersweet results. The writing is lovely and the race, when it finally arrives, left me breathless. This was a nice vacation read.