A review by bendercath
Horse by Geraldine Brooks

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book completely captivated me. So many passages just took my breath away. I don’t always love bouncing timelines but this one worked. However, the ending was
Spoiler quite abrupt and shocking to me. I really hated that Theo was killed. What if the author had chosen a different ending … he could have been accused and maybe even beaten by an officer … but shot in cold blood while in a defenseless stance?  I found Jess’ fascination with skeletons to be so symbolic … like she was literally learning about creatures from the inside out. What if that would have been a metaphor for her understanding of  racism? Did the author intend to kill off any hope that Theo could contribute to Black scholarship? That part just did not compute. <\spoiler> reading about Jarrett … his intelligence, his love of horses, his expertise and insight into horses and humans … all of it was so beautiful. One cringey section was the romanticization of his time picking cotton in the fields. No way in hell should that have been portrayed so wistfully, as if he were somehow better after being subjected to such brutality.
I have read many articles and heard interviews about Geraldine Brooks being white and writing about Black characters and racism. I am sensitive to that and want to learn more about her perspective. This book definitely got me thinking a lot.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings