Book Review: Half Broke Horses

Someone in my book club suggested we read Jeannette Walls' Half Broke Horses. I was familiar with the author and the title. I read her memoir, The Glass Castle, years ago. While I couldn't remember what it was about, I vaguely remembered it being an absorbing read (never a dull moment). The front cover of Half Broke Horses declares it is a "true-life novel" (think "embellished memoir"). It is based on the lives of Jeannette's mother and grandmother.

Since Half Broke Horses begins with a flash flood in Texas, it grabbed my attention. The flooding on the Guadalupe River happened just weeks before I read Walls' novel/memoir. Thus, it sucked me in right away. My book club now picks two titles for the monthly meeting. The alternate title was Robert Dugoni's The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, a book I enjoyed when I read it years ago.

I re-read Dugoni's book and enjoyed it more than Half Broke Horses. Still, the true-life novel was full of action and adventure. It sometimes felt contrived. Everyone says real life is stranger than fiction. Walls' book was full of cowboys, fast horses, cars, and planes. It had devious and decent men, sad and stunning women. Life rambled across several states, and seemed packed with challenges and setbacks, courageously overcome. In the end, I could have skipped reading the true-life novel. Most of our book discussion centered on the Dugoni book. Then again, we often spend half the time discussing our lives, because real life is more pressing and interesting than fiction.