review Oh, Joe.You made your point in the first dozen pages. Then you beat it to death. You may be kind to equines but you are brutal on homo sapiens.I know...more
Oh, Joe.You made your point in the first dozen pages. Then you beat it to death. You may be kind to equines but you are brutal on homo sapiens.I know this is meant to be heartwarming--your account of acquiring a half-dozen horses, learning how to care and understand them, and ultimately how the experience changed your life.Unfortunately, the writing is clunky and uninspiring. Every other chapter deals with your learning curve. The in between chapters recount an imagined story of a stallion in the wild and its encounter with the first humans. This is so bad I ended up skipping it and sticking with the even numbered chapters.I was raised with horses. I get it. Horse shoes are bad. Leggings are bad. Breaking is bad. The horse does indeed have a soul. And they are intelligent. You don’t have to overstate this.And that is what happens. Make a point and repeat it over and over again. Then tell stories from other sources. And make references to books and DVD’s that none of us have ever heard of. You quoted another author so many times I thought why aren’t I reading that book?I wanted to find those warm and fuzzy moments, but just as you would focus your writing in that direction, you’d loose it and start preaching—an old sermon from a previous service. If you had recounted one more time how you prepared the open pasture for your burgeoning flock, I would have been forced to buy a can of horse meat cat food out of spite. You saved me from this by mercifully ending the book.I wish I could get you to re-write it because there really is a good story here and one people would be interested in. Can you take it back? I guess not. I am sorry you come across as an obnoxious jerk. I am sure your neighbors want to smack you with an old hitching post (did you need an entire chapter on the evils of the hitching post?). Sorry dude. I wanted to like your book. I just couldn’t be a part of your home on the range. (less)
review Oh, Joe.You made your point in the first dozen pages. Then you beat it to death. You may be kind to equines but you are brutal on homo sapiens.I know...more
Oh, Joe.You made your point in the first dozen pages. Then you beat it to death. You may be kind to equines but you are brutal on homo sapiens.I know this is meant to be heartwarming--your account of acquiring a half-dozen horses, learning how to care and understand them, and ultimately how the experience changed your life.Unfortunately, the writing is clunky and uninspiring. Every other chapter deals with your learning curve. The in between chapters recount an imagined story of a stallion in the wild and its encounter with the first humans. This is so bad I ended up skipping it and sticking with the even numbered chapters.I was raised with horses. I get it. Horse shoes are bad. Leggings are bad. Breaking is bad. The horse does indeed have a soul. And they are intelligent. You don’t have to overstate this.And that is what happens. Make a point and repeat it over and over
 again. Then tell stories from other sources. And make references to books and DVD’s that none of us have ever heard of. You quoted another author so many times I thought why aren’t I reading that book?I wanted to find those warm and fuzzy moments, but just as you would focus your writing in that direction, you’d loose it and start preaching—an old sermon from a previous service. If you had recounted one more time how you prepared the open pasture for your burgeoning flock, I would have been forced to buy a can of horse meat cat food out of spite. You saved me from this by mercifully ending the book.I wish I could get you to re-write it because there really is a good story here and one people would be interested in. Can you take it back? I guess not. I am sorry you come across as an obnoxious jerk. I am sure your neighbors want to smack you with an old hitching post (did you need an entire chapter on the evils of the hitching post?). Sorry dude. I wanted to like your book. I just couldn’t be a part of your home on the range. (less)