foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
4.0
What a strange book this is! It feels like Enid Bagnold changed her mind about what kind of book she was writing at least three times during this short novel. Is it a book about racing? about keeping animals? about thwarted ambition? about the press? I don't know, and yet I enjoy every page of this! Written in the early 1930s, the story is about a lower-middle class family living in a small village in the south of England. Velvet, the fourth daughter, is obsessed with horses, and when we begin the novel she is riding an imaginary horse over the hills and back to her house. But as the story progresses, Velvet ends up with not just one horse of her own, but six, and goes on to be the first woman to ride in the Grand National at the age of fourteen. The plot is ridiculous, with raffles, surprise legacies, and suicides, but Bagnold's insightful prose and earthy dialogue roots the book in reality. Though Velvet is one of five siblings, Bagnold manages to give us an impression of everyone in the family, and the butcher shop, details of family life, and arguments between sisters, all feel tangible. Overall, this story has much more depth than many children's or YA novels of the time: attention is given to Velvet's mother, her strength of character and her pathos, and to the details of taking care of a large family in a small house, down to difficulties with flushing the lavatory. The details are very funny and often feel very true to life. This background makes it easier to swallow the frankly ridiculous details surrounding the ways Velvet acquires horses and races them. It's an enjoyable, vivid oddity.
maplessence's review against another edition
3.0
A very quick review as I'm going away tomorrow.
Not an easy book to classify, but I will go with young adult because of Velvet Brown's age. (She was fourteen)
I love the interaction of the Brown family and found them all very easy to relate to. I loved seeing a young girl follow her dreams.
But I did find too much just too improbable and I found the book poorly structured (it took till chapter 7 to get going) and with distractions like that took away from the plot without really adding anything. I will add that although I love to look at horses, I don't like being with horses. So this book was always going to be a hard sell for me.
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Not an easy book to classify, but I will go with young adult because of Velvet Brown's age. (She was fourteen)
I love the interaction of the Brown family and found them all very easy to relate to. I loved seeing a young girl follow her dreams.
But I did find too much just too improbable and I found the book poorly structured (it took till chapter 7 to get going) and with distractions like
Spoiler
the other five horses
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lavendermarch's review against another edition
4.0
I got this book for two dollars at a library sale over the weekend. I'd heard of National Velvet, but never read it, even though I devoured horse books when I was younger.
It took me a bit to get used to the way National Velvet was written. It was written about eighty years ago, so everyone talks differently in the book, and things are just older, which threw me for a bit of a loop. However, after getting used to that, I did enjoy the book. Bagnold is an excellent writer, and her imagery was really well done. I could picture each of the characters and their mannerism and such in my head, and I was pulled into the story.
The action really got going in the second half of the book, and I liked what Bagnold did with the plot - she had Velvet win the race, and then wrote about the uproar that followed, which I thought was kind of interesting. I liked Velvet well enough, and the cover of the copy of the book I have is nice.
I'm glad I read this book, and now I want to watch the movie (it has Elizabeth Taylor in it!) as this is the kind of book that would be exciting onscreen. I do think that I enjoy the Pony Club Secrets series and Paint the Wind a bit more, due to the more modern language, but this is obviously an older and well written addition to the children's horse books cannon.
It took me a bit to get used to the way National Velvet was written. It was written about eighty years ago, so everyone talks differently in the book, and things are just older, which threw me for a bit of a loop. However, after getting used to that, I did enjoy the book. Bagnold is an excellent writer, and her imagery was really well done. I could picture each of the characters and their mannerism and such in my head, and I was pulled into the story.
The action really got going in the second half of the book, and I liked what Bagnold did with the plot - she had Velvet win the race, and then wrote about the uproar that followed, which I thought was kind of interesting. I liked Velvet well enough, and the cover of the copy of the book I have is nice.
I'm glad I read this book, and now I want to watch the movie (it has Elizabeth Taylor in it!) as this is the kind of book that would be exciting onscreen. I do think that I enjoy the Pony Club Secrets series and Paint the Wind a bit more, due to the more modern language, but this is obviously an older and well written addition to the children's horse books cannon.
emu_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
lorienbird32's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
I thought this book was going to be a fun read, considering it's about horses and I love horses. But I didn't find it very lovable. For one thing, the characters were all so similar; the sister's names were literally so similar that I couldn't really tell them apart.
Also,
And, when the Grand National happened, it was told from the point of view of someone who couldn't see anything and didn't know what was going on!
The thing that I did like about this book was the unique names. I have never heard of a girl named "Velvet" before. And I liked how they used a Piebald as her horse; not a typical kind of racehorse. And I also liked the fact that the ending is about how hard it is to be famous; most people only think about the sugar of being famous; this book shows you the salt.
Other than that, I think this book was poorly written and was really rushed at the end.
Also,
Spoiler
she wins the Grand National but then since she's a girl everybody treats her poorly and tries to give all the prize money to Mi, after she did all the hard work! And the ending was so abrupt, you don't even know who got the money in the end! As far as I know, this book is NOT a series, so how's that fair?And, when the Grand National happened, it was told from the point of view of someone who couldn't see anything and didn't know what was going on!
The thing that I did like about this book was the unique names. I have never heard of a girl named "Velvet" before. And I liked how they used a Piebald as her horse; not a typical kind of racehorse. And I also liked the fact that the ending is about how hard it is to be famous; most people only think about the sugar of being famous; this book shows you the salt.
Other than that, I think this book was poorly written and was really rushed at the end.
drakaina16's review against another edition
2.0
This is one of the very few cases I can think of that the movie was better than the book. The horse scenes were good, but I found myself wondering what the hell was going on most of the rest of the book. I also don't understand why the author chose to write the National from Mi's point of view. It would have been much more exciting from Velvet's. On the whole, I'm rather disappointed.
dilliemillie's review against another edition
5.0
Haven't read this for years, and at this point I'm a little scared to.
This used to be the book I could finish and immediately start over at the beginning.
This used to be the book I could finish and immediately start over at the beginning.
jenniferfrye's review against another edition
5.0
I vividly remember the horse necklace that came with this novel—I loved it! Going through my pony phase, this book satisfied all my fantasies of one day winning a horse in a raffle and then going on to achieve greatness, and I read it multiple times.
(I also used it as a basis for a school book project, which required we make a board game inspired by the book…and I vividly remember making, for my game pieces, little cardboard and paper horses the same way that Velvet does.)
(I also used it as a basis for a school book project, which required we make a board game inspired by the book…and I vividly remember making, for my game pieces, little cardboard and paper horses the same way that Velvet does.)