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wordsofclover 's review for:
Race Girl
by Leigh Hutton
I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tully Athens dreams of being a jockey just like her mother. But due to a tragic accident that claimed her mom’s life, Tully is both scared to ride a horse again, and dissuaded from doing so by her dad. When they come close to losing the family farm, Tully finally musters the courage to race again - even if her father is against it.
This book had a lot of great potential, and I did enjoy just the general horsiness of the book, and the bond between horse and rider. I don’t know a whole lot about the horse-racing world, so I love books that give me a glimpse into the inner workings of the behind the scenes show.
However, this book fell into so many horse book cliches I swear I could hear my eyes rolling at what was happening so many times. And not just that, but the romance in the book took over at many points and it was so quick and laughable. Tully basically fell in love with the guy after a five-second meeting and then was heartbroken for over a year when all they’d done was share a brief kiss and a few texts. COME ON.
The first 40% of this book was really slow to get moving, and didn’t really contain much horse racing or anything as Tully really quickly became consumed with her crush and it was sooo boring. I almost DNF’d it several times. Then it picked up when she began her apprenticeship as a jockey and I really enjoyed that part but then the timeline seemed to go on double speed and we raced through so many events and all of a sudden her apprenticeship was over and it was just a bit too quick. I would have liked more time to live in that world.
There were a few events that happened in the last 10-20% of the book that were so ridiculous it made me laugh out loud. Like literally so many things went wrong at the same time, it was unbelievable when just one of these things would have been enough to carry the story to the end.
I think there was potential here, and in terms of editing (I think this is self-published), I didn’t see any glaring errors such as grammar or spelling that would normally annoy me. But the entire story as a whole needed a lot more tightening and focus, and I think a lot could have been scrapped for the benefit of the plot.
Tully Athens dreams of being a jockey just like her mother. But due to a tragic accident that claimed her mom’s life, Tully is both scared to ride a horse again, and dissuaded from doing so by her dad. When they come close to losing the family farm, Tully finally musters the courage to race again - even if her father is against it.
This book had a lot of great potential, and I did enjoy just the general horsiness of the book, and the bond between horse and rider. I don’t know a whole lot about the horse-racing world, so I love books that give me a glimpse into the inner workings of the behind the scenes show.
However, this book fell into so many horse book cliches I swear I could hear my eyes rolling at what was happening so many times. And not just that, but the romance in the book took over at many points and it was so quick and laughable. Tully basically fell in love with the guy after a five-second meeting and then was heartbroken for over a year when all they’d done was share a brief kiss and a few texts. COME ON.
The first 40% of this book was really slow to get moving, and didn’t really contain much horse racing or anything as Tully really quickly became consumed with her crush and it was sooo boring. I almost DNF’d it several times. Then it picked up when she began her apprenticeship as a jockey and I really enjoyed that part but then the timeline seemed to go on double speed and we raced through so many events and all of a sudden her apprenticeship was over and it was just a bit too quick. I would have liked more time to live in that world.
There were a few events that happened in the last 10-20% of the book that were so ridiculous it made me laugh out loud. Like literally so many things went wrong at the same time, it was unbelievable when just one of these things would have been enough to carry the story to the end.
I think there was potential here, and in terms of editing (I think this is self-published), I didn’t see any glaring errors such as grammar or spelling that would normally annoy me. But the entire story as a whole needed a lot more tightening and focus, and I think a lot could have been scrapped for the benefit of the plot.