”There was death at its beginning as there would be death again at its end, Though whether it was some fleeting shadow of this that passed across the girls dreams and woke her on that least likely of mornings she would never know.
All she knew, when she opened her eyes, was that the world was somehow altered, ”
”There was snow, The first fall of winter, And from the laterals of the fence up by the pond she could tell there must be almost a foot of it, With no deflecting wind, it was perfect and driftless”
When Grace and Pilgrim, her horse, end up riding with her friend and her friends horse, on this morning of first snow, two will return damaged, and two lives are lost.
Graces life is physically forever altered, and Pilgrims as well, but the physical is easier to see and make plans to manage, The mental and emotional toll is harder to see and treat,
Graces mother, Annie, is determined to control and fix the situation, To her mind Grace will never truly return to her former self until and unless Pilgrim is also healed, She cant rest until she finds a way, which ultimately leads to a discovery that there are men and some
women although few of them who can soothe these wounded animals.
”For secrets uttered softly into priced and troubled ears, these men were known as Whisperers, ”
And so Annie sets out to find, and then convince Tom Booker, a horse whisperer, to help Pilgrim, and by extension help Grace.
It takes more than a little convincing, but she is not a woman who is used to, or willing, to taking no for an answer,
I loved the setting of this story, I loved Bookers view of boiling things down to the essentials of life, and how easy that seemed.
I saw the movie many years ago, and loved it, as well, but I no longer remember the details of the movie, only that Robert Redford was the horse whisperer.
”There were such moments, he knew, when the world chose thus to reveal itself not, as it might seem, to mock our plight or our irrelevance but simply to affirm, for us and for all life, the very act of being.
”
There is, within this story, a love story, although there are several individual stories which are about love in its many forms, A mothers fierce, protective love for her child, A fathers tender, devoted love for his child, A mans love that allows him to let go of those he loves for what he sees as their sake, A girls love for her horse that becomes a burden that she carries with her, unable to see anything but that moment, that day, and the damage to this splendid creature.
A mans love so great that he would risk all to protect those he loves,
”And she thought, but didnt say, what a perilous commodity love was and that the proper calibration of its giving and taking was too precise by far for mere humans.
”
Many thanks to my goodreads friend, Mischenko, whose review prompted me to move this one up!
,Tragic Stars!
I will never forget this one, this one gutted me, just the title induces tears amp butterflies, . . and yet I Ioved it too, . . Jautri istorija apie iš naujo atrastąametės Greisės ir jos žirgo Piligrimo pasitikėjimą savo jėgomis po nelaimingo nutikimo,
Labai įdomu buvo skaityti, kada buvo rašoma apie draugystę tarp žmogaus ir arklių, kaip svarbu suprasti arklio psichologiją padedant jam išgyti po traumų tai buvo atskleista per veikėjo išmintingo arklių užkalbėtojo Tomo mintis, veiksmus.
Labai norėjosi daugiau apie pačią mergaitę, bet čia daug buvo pasakojama ir apie Greisės mamą Anę ir jos meilės istoriją vienu metu man ji patiko, lyg ir supratau jos veiksmus, bet visumoje ji pasirodė savanaudiška veikėja.
Knyga baigiasi liūdnai, Nežinau kodėl, bet visad pykstu, kai taip yra,
/Patiko
Nkelios sekso scenos Yesterday, Annie had stood beside Grace and watched Tom Booker get Pilgrim from the training pool, The horse hadn't wanted to come out, had feared a trap, so Tom had walked down the ramp till he was up to his waist, Pilgrim reared up over him. But Tom was totally unfazed, It seemed miraculous to Annie how the man could stand so calmly close to death, Pilgrim too had seemed baffled by this lack of fear and soon staggered out and let himself be ushered to the stall,
Tom stood dripping before Grace and Annie, He took off his hat and poured the water from its brim, Grace started to laugh and he gave her a wry look,
"She's a heartless woman this daughter of yours," he said to Annie, "What she doesn't know is next time she's the one going in, " p
Don't worry, Tom never makes a disabled teenager get into a training pool with an unstable horse, But what I loved about this scene, at this location, was where this story had come from, how much ground it had covered, and where it appeared to be going.
I was incredibly invested in the story of a girl and her horse, both brutalized and traumatized in the same accident, turning to the same semimagical beast master for healing.
What I was not ready for was the turn the narrative took, even though I was completely expecting it at some point, I mean, this book is known as a romance, even though it isn't written like one, The whole thing is just terribly constructed, Messy. Miserable ending.
I don't want to spent too much more time on this book review, as I really feel like I've spent enough time readingpages of GOTCHA! and I know jack all about horses.
But I have to say, I know an animal torture scene when I read one, I don't care how many apologies Evans pumped into those paragraphs, And I did research it after the fact, because I wanted to know, and it turns out that the horse training climax scene does depict highly controversial "training methods.
" The kind known for breaking horses' bones, Yuck.
So this isn't a great book there's a lot wrong with it, But I didn't hate it either he didn't baby his disabled character and that is really amazing, You have no idea. In fact I really enjoyed the middlepages, But the lastwas a bit of a chore to finish,
Ratingstars, Spicy factor
Finished August
Recommended to fans of modern romance, westerns, forbidden love stories, tragedies, animal stories readers seeking narratives with disabled characters horse lovers
TW animal abuse, animal cruelty, car accident, loss of limb, infidelity, probably more I'm not thinking of
August Pick/
Book Club Summer Genre Challenge: Romance
Book ClubBook Challenge: a wealthy character
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