When we chose Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls as our second Online Book Club selection, many of us were familiar with the author’s work. Jeannette Walls’ 2005 bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle, was a book club favourite when it came out. It was her memoir of growing up in the midst of a family struggling with alcoholism and mental illness.
Half Broke Horses tells the life story of the author’s grandmother, Lily. Lily is a remarkable woman who overcame many hardships during her years growing up in Texas, California, Chicago and Arizona. Throughout the pages of the book, we accompany Lily as she survives tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression and person tragedy. She emerges as “an amazing and admirable woman, especially considering the time in which she grew up.”
While The Glass Castle succeeded in its autobiographical genre because of its ability to be completely honest, in Half Broke Horses, Walls is able to flesh out her grandmother’s story with her own strong storytelling skills. Walls uses the first person narrative, so the reader is once again completely immersed by an authentic and natural voice.
One of the first things that our book club members remarked upon was the “pace” of the book. Set up in short chapters, each telling a bit of Lily’s story, Half Broke Horses is almost more like a collection of short stories than a novel. All readers enjoyed the style, and found the book very easy to pick up and put down…always a critical consideration for reading mothers!
I heard one reviewer describe Half Broke Horses as “Laura Ingalls Wilder” for adults, and I think it’s a valid comparison. With Lily Casey Smith, the reader is introduced to a no-nonsense, strong and fascinating heroine, who leaves you wishing you could spend a little more time with her.
Book club members enjoyed Lily’s amazing ability to change the direction of her own life. There were certainly times when she could have blamed others for where she ended up. Instead, when faced with adversity, she was able to pick up and start over in a way that we all admired. Our book club discussion veered into an interesting conversation about how we’d react to such adversity in our own lives.
Overall, the UrbanMoms Online Book club found Half Broke Horses to be a compelling story about a strong woman. Many of us have passed the book along to our husbands, who have also enjoyed it, so this is an easy book to recommend to all readers!
I think I need this one – I read The Glass Castle and became an even more devoted fan to Ms. Walls. I wish I’d seen her talk the last time she was in town… I won’t miss her again!
I loved this book. My spouse bought it for me for Christmas, as a surprise (I get lots of books for gifts and they’re generally off of a wishlist I made). It was a compelling read. I enjoyed the recounting of the small schoolhouse days, and the story of poverty that so many just do not understand the depths of. I felt I could truly envision Lily. The Glass Castle is in my pile of books to read soon. 🙂
Buddy of mine sent me the link for this. Pretty good I must say and worth the effort to check it out, so thanks and keep it up.
i will look for this book. it sounds like a great book and i woulds like to read it.
A great read. (I couldn’t put this one down) I agree with Michele. It does expand on the The Glass Castle. I found that reading this book helped me better understand the characters in The Glass Castle. I highly reccomend this book. I reccomended this book to my husband and sister and they both loved it.
I read this book last fall when it first came out and loved it! It truly expands on the first (The Glass Castle) and reveals to us one of the strongest female characters I’ve read about in many years. What a life for this trail-blazer and fully explains the family that followed. Would highly recommend this book.
Great read! I was so impressed by the strength of the main female character. Lily was truly a remarkable woman.
I encourage everyone to read this story. I recommended the book to both my husband and mother and they both thoroughly enjoyed it!
I really enjoyed it. Well written and engaging.
She writes beautifully, and you can read the book
in snippets, because every chapter is a story of it’s own.
Highly recommend!
I loved this book. It was sweet and simple yet the characters were fully developed and compelling. I would highly recommend it!