The God of Animals - a novel (about a girl on a small horse ranch) (characters, story)
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This is one of those books that has stayed in my memory a few years later so I thought I'd see what other people think if they have read it. And recommend it to others who think they might like it after reading the description.
I don't remember any great truths, life metaphors or anything. It was just one of those books that really sinks you into the location, time and characters.
Unique and well written.
The horse ranch and horses are a large part of the book.
I will say it is not a particularly happy book (but not super tragic either) so if you are one of those people who insists on happy, then I would not recommend it for you.
From Amazon
With the sure hand of a seasoned writer, Aryn Kyle has crafted a brilliant debut with her novel, The God of Animals. Alice Winston, living on the family horse ranch, a marginal enterprise in Desert Valley, Colorado, is a 12-year-old girl with more than she can handle and no one to help her cope. Polly, a classmate of hers, drowned in the nearby canal and was carried out by Alice's father, Joe, a member of the volunteer posse. Her older sister, 16-year-old Nona, eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Her mother never leaves her bedroom, a case of clinical depression. "My mother had spent nearly my whole life in her bedroom... Nona said that one day, while I was still a baby, our mother had handed me to her, said she was tired, and gone upstairs to rest. She never came back down."
Twelve year old Alice is so wonderfully scripted, so intense, so tightly woven that I completely identify with her. But it is not just Alice's story it is the story of many characters in the book. Yes, even the horses'.
Reading this book has reminded me, and I do need to be reminded from time to time, that no matter how complete, how rich, how fulfilling another person's life may seem to be to us, it is not always so. Everyone has their own cross to bear, their own sadness, their own battle.
The God of Animals reminds the reader that we are lucky. We always have a choice and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel if we will just look for it.
This book is a total delight. It's not full of fru-fru personas. It has grit and sorrow and absolute joy.
I absolutely recommend it.
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