A review by hors3girl
Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley

5.0

My first experience of Jane Smiley's work and I frolicked through the pages. A book so oddly familiar and comfortable to me that if I were a novelist this is the book I would write. I attribute my high opinion of this story to my life experiences. I'm a horse girl. I grew up without unfettered access to horses but yearned to be with them (or be one with them, even). I devoured equine textbooks and novels, followed horse racing with a naive earnestness, planned out how I would convert our garage into a stall should my parents magically gift me with my very own horse, and imagined writing the next Black Beauty. I feel like this book was written for me. Jane Smiley, thank you for this book. My inner child was grinning ear to ear and galloping around my heart as I read.