So, as usual, I
have been reading plenty of books and blogging about zero of them, mostly
because I’ve become obsessed with getting my own book published. It is a slow, soul-sucking process which
should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.
Happily, I’m not particularly sensitive, and press on in spite of all
the rejection.
Anyway, in the
past three weeks I’ve finished three books and thought I should blog about at
least one of them. All three, Legend by Marie Lu, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and The Riverman by Aaron Starmer, were quite good in their own way,
and I would recommend them all.
In all fairness,
though, I should start with The Scorpio
Races because Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver
was the first YA book I’d ever read (having been born in the olden days, I
only had children’s books or adult books available to me) and started me on a
seemingly never-ending binge of YA reading.
It is her work, in fact, that inspired me to even think of writing my own
book.
The Scorpio Races is set on what appears to be a
British/Irish sort of island in an indeterminate time period that seems to be
the past – but if you’ve ever been on a British/Irish sort of island, you will
realize that this is often the case. Much
like Shiver, the story is told from alternating
points-of-view. Puck (Kate) is the
heroine of the story. She’s a little
grumbly and a lot brave, motivated to take on the terrifying challenge of
racing her gentle horse against men riding killer water horses because she
believes it may prolong her eldest brother’s leaving the family home. Oh yeah, also because her parents are dead,
her young brother is just a tad off, and they risk getting kicked out of the
only home they’ve every known. In light of all that, prize money seems pretty
tempting.
Sean Kendrick
serves as the other narrator. All angles
and silence, Sean loves the island, but he loves the horses even more,
particularly his water horse, Corr. Like Puck, Sean is also motivated to win the
Scorpio Races in order to sort out his own variety of issues; that is, until
Puck comes along putting a new spin on both winning and on being alone.
As usual, I
found the characters extremely well-written, original, and
multi-dimensional. The story, which
revolves around the Celtic myth of the Capaill
Uisce, water horses who rise from the ocean only to get extraordinarily
cranky with anyone who tries to stop them from going back, was also quite original. The setting, which is complex and
multilayered, is generally one of my favorites anyway (i.e., anything Celtic
and rainy) so I was pretty predisposed to enjoying that aspect of the story.
All in all, The Scorpio Races definitely doesn’t
disappoint in any way and, as with all Maggie Stiefvater’s works, I highly
recommend it.
LAME
FACTOR: Maggie Stiefvater doesn’t have a
lame bone in her body. 0 of 5.
YOUR PARENTS
WILL FREAK FACTOR: I can’t think of any
reasons why they would.
BRAIN
POWER: I’m clearly prejudiced, but this
is a great author who uses real words, beautiful sentence structure, and
metaphors the rest of us couldn’t even begin to imagine. Your brain might actually grow.
