Half Broke Horses

Half Broke Horses ***1/2

by Jeannette Walls

Book Type: True life novel

Summary: Half Broke Horses is the story of Lily Casey Smith’s life. Author Jeannette Walls, the granddaughter of Lily Casey Smith, wrote the book from Lily’s point of view. Lily is portrayed as a strong, spirited, and resourceful woman, who overcomes poverty and tragedy with the positive attitude that “When God closes a window, he opens a door. But it’s up to you to find it.” As a child growing up on the frontier in Texas, Lily learns how to break horses. At the age of fifteen, she rides five hundred miles, alone, to get to her job as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. Later in life, Lily runs a vast cattle ranch in Arizona, along with her second husband and their two children. A woman of many talents, Lily earns extra money at various points in her life by playing poker, selling bootleg liquor, and riding in horse races. She also tries to fight injustice and prejudice wherever she finds it, which occasionally lands her in trouble. Half Broke Horses depicts the freedom of rural life, its joys and struggles, and celebrates the courage and spirit of its protagonist. Jeannette Walls says the book is “in the vein of an oral history, a retelling of stories handed down by my family through the years, and undertaken with the storyteller’s traditional liberties.”

summary found on wikipedia

My Review: I absolutely LOVED The Glass Castle, the first book that Jeanette Walls wrote. The Glass Castle is a memoir, this book is a "true life novel". The story may not be entirely accurate but it is told as though it is a personal story. It is about Jeanette Walls grandmother. I thought that the first half of the novel was great because the story was really amazing. As a young woman she had a lot of difficult and life-changing experiences. Later in the novel she becomes a little too... I don't know, nuts? She is just so over the top as a teacher that it drives me kind of crazy. And the part about how they would wear their shirts until the fronts were absolutely filthy then turn it around and wear it until the back was absolutely filthy, then flip it inside out and do it again. On top of that they NEVER wash their jeans. GROSS. Even so, the woman is incredible and leads a fairly extraordinary life.