The Scorpio Races {book review}

by Maggie Stiefvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.
 (from the back cover)



What an incredible, horrifying, beautiful, swallow-you-whole book. It's a story about an island, and people, and horses, and an Irish/Scottish/Manx myth, and I love it. Maggie Stiefvater painted such a clear portrait of Thisby that I almost feel as if I could visit the island this fall, taste the sticky-sweetness of November cakes, and meet the people and horses who live there.

Yes, the characters all have such depth and complexity to them as to seem unbelievably real, but it was the horses that blew me away. Stiefvater knows horses, and that is such a rare thing to find among authors that I could have liked this book on the merit of the horses alone. She knows what it is to ride on the wings of four thundering hooves -- I could tell because I've felt it, too.

And because I had entwined myself so hopelessly into this fantastical world, two unforgettable scenes managed to pierce my heart so deeply as to draw out a flood very real, very wet tears. I do not cry in books or movies -- a tear or two, perhaps, or a catch of breath, but this was real.

5/5 leaves!