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Average rating: 4/5

Based on 143 ratings

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel

by Jeannette Walls

Simon & Schuster | October 6, 2009 | Hardcover

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town-riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one who is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds-against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere.

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This item is found in: Biography and Memoir

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Rating: 3/5

"not bad"

Reader1

6 months ago

jeannette's second novel is not bad, but the glass castle is way better. as the other reviews have explained.

i decided i would give it try because i am so intrigued by jeanette and her entire family. half broke horses is about her grandmother smith (rosemary's side of family) before she was born. setting back when land was priceless and "cowboys and ranchers were a way of life.

you can read them in chronically order since this does occur before the "adventures" of the walls family. but you will not get the some of things that happen to the smith family unless you read the glass castle before.

pros: great story, reading is very easy you can easily picture the desert, ranch and cattle life; still interesting because lily casey smith still has her own adventures and ideologies that make this family who they are today. grandma lily is still a strong, clever and easily adaptable character/ person.

cons: not even close to being as humorous as the glass castle, i love jeannete walls; even though it was meant to be the voice of lily casey smith in the back of my mind i was still hearing jeannette talking like she was reading the diary of her grandmother. but maybe because i was so captured by jeannette i couldn't get her off my mind.

read if you would like to read more of jeannette's writing, but if you haven't read the glass castle you have no idea what you are missing.

half broke horses can be skipped, if you want.

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