Riding Lessons 
By Sara Gruen

       Ms. Gruen has a broad control of language, to the extent of being poetic in her description of the most casual of detail. In fact, the author writes with a Cormac McCarthyesque flair:

I tighten my fingers, No, no, no Harry, not yet, I’ll let you, but not yet, and his ears prick forward, together this time, and he says, All right, and gives me a collected canter that feels like a rocking horse, so high on the up and so low on the down.

      The author uses long paragraphs, run-on sentences, and poetry with the use of simple words and phrasing. The book had me enthralled within the first few pages. However, while the author’s command of language cannot be contested, her ability to plot an interesting, unique story is questionable. “Riding Lessons” starts with an engaging first chapter, but falls into familiar territory soon after.

      Certainly, this book is similar to “The Horse Whisperer”. In fact, the title of that popular book and film is mentioned on the book cover (in the powerful tradition of “The Horse Whisperer”). Here we have the story of a woman in her mid-thirties who has problems with her marriage, job, and teenage daughter, all at once. Familiar? Throw in aging parents, a riding academy/stable in financial trouble, and a horribly injured and disfigured horse from the past, and the similarity grows. Moreover, while the story did keep me interested, the narrative became more about the main character’s depressing change of circumstances, and how she was to deal with them, than about Harry, the marvelous horse from the past, and the ghostly Hurrah, seemingly Harry’s reincarnation in the present. Of the book’s 387 pages, nearly 300 deal with Annemarie Zimmer and her emotional problems, and the rest with the mystery and adventure of the horses. That is a shame, for it is when Ms. Gruen writes about the horses that the story comes most alive.

      I recommend this book; it is immediately engaging, and worth taking to the beach, even though it parrots “The Horse Whisperer’s” unspoken theme, that a love of horses is the answer to most of life’s problems. My only disappointment is that the author should have written more about the horses of the story, a subject that obviously captures Ms. Gruen’s passion more than any other subplot.

     Let me, he says, and I say Yes, because how can I not, and I feel the energy in his haunches and then pow! He shoots off the ground and the crest of his neck rises toward me and I thrust my hands forward to keep the reins light and it’s beautiful.

Yes, Ms. Gruen. It is.