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rilina 's review for:
The Scorpio Races
by Maggie Stiefvater
Every year the Scorpio Races come to beaches of Thisby Island. It's a war as much as a race, because the jockeys are riding the capaille uisce, the water horses of Thisby, who are magical and carnivorous and never entirely tamed. Sean Kendrick is a returning champion, who hopes to use his share of the winning purse to buy the water horse that he rides but doesn't own. Meanwhile, according to Thisby's tradition, Puck Connolly is a mistake: she's the first woman to ever enter the races, and she's even riding a regular island horse, her beloved Dove, instead of one of the capaille uisce. But with her elder brother leaving home for the mainland and her family on the brink of being evicted from their home, she also can't afford to lose.
I picked up an ARC of this book at ALA and then gave it away because...really? Magical killer horses? I was sure it was not my thing. But I enjoyed this immensely. It has such a strong sense of place, and you can almost feel the chill of the salt air as Sean and Puck prepare for the race and, of course, fall in the love. The romance is understated, and though it's a central part of the book, it's also not the book's only center. There's also Sean's and Puck's dreams for their futures, and their families and communities, and their connections with the horses they ride. And the ending of the book hits just the right note.
I read part of this in print and listened to some of it as audio, and the nice thing about the audio is that I actually know how to pronounce capaille uisce. Mostly I liked the audio, though I really was not a fan of how Sean's narrator performed Puck's dialogue in Sean's POV segments.
I picked up an ARC of this book at ALA and then gave it away because...really? Magical killer horses? I was sure it was not my thing. But I enjoyed this immensely. It has such a strong sense of place, and you can almost feel the chill of the salt air as Sean and Puck prepare for the race and, of course, fall in the love. The romance is understated, and though it's a central part of the book, it's also not the book's only center. There's also Sean's and Puck's dreams for their futures, and their families and communities, and their connections with the horses they ride. And the ending of the book hits just the right note.
I read part of this in print and listened to some of it as audio, and the nice thing about the audio is that I actually know how to pronounce capaille uisce. Mostly I liked the audio, though I really was not a fan of how Sean's narrator performed Puck's dialogue in Sean's POV segments.