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A review by suncoyote
History Lesson for Girls by Aurelie Sheehan
2.0
Sometimes I think I should work as an editor. I see so often how authors don't leave enough bread crumbs for us to follow to their huge denouement. They think they're building this wonderful rise into a crashing crescendo, but fail to understand how to build it successfully. History Lesson for Girls is just one of those books.
A perfect example of this is the horses--the two main characters (I even forget their names now) are young girls who supposedly want to run away together some day to open a place for horses, yet all the talk of horses, their relationships with horses, is practically a P.S. in the story. The horses get less time than the narrator's ongoing battle with scoliosis, yet we're meant to believe that when the other girl's father shoots her horse that it's the pinnacle of his asshole behavior. Her horse was mentioned maybe 2 times--while I found it morally outrageous as an animal person, from a plot perspective he may as well have tossed out her childhood teddy bear. The author failed to establish the intense affection between the girls and the horses, and the psychological benefit they gained from the freedom of such a big animal: one to take off her brace and feel normal and powerful, while the other to escape from a horrible household. Because that premise, which would have worked quite well, was never established I couldn't believe in the tragedy of the horses ending.
Maybe Sheehan will get a better editor who will tell her to flesh out her stories better .... but right now, I would not recommend this book.
A perfect example of this is the horses--the two main characters (I even forget their names now) are young girls who supposedly want to run away together some day to open a place for horses, yet all the talk of horses, their relationships with horses, is practically a P.S. in the story. The horses get less time than the narrator's ongoing battle with scoliosis, yet we're meant to believe that when the other girl's father shoots her horse that it's the pinnacle of his asshole behavior. Her horse was mentioned maybe 2 times--while I found it morally outrageous as an animal person, from a plot perspective he may as well have tossed out her childhood teddy bear. The author failed to establish the intense affection between the girls and the horses, and the psychological benefit they gained from the freedom of such a big animal: one to take off her brace and feel normal and powerful, while the other to escape from a horrible household. Because that premise, which would have worked quite well, was never established I couldn't believe in the tragedy of the horses ending.
Maybe Sheehan will get a better editor who will tell her to flesh out her stories better .... but right now, I would not recommend this book.