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Riding Lessons (Riding Lessons #1)
by
Sara Gruen
A stunning new voice in American fiction, Sara Gruen makes a masterful debut with a novel of family, tragedy, rebirth ... and the breathtaking love of something wild.
As a world-class equestrienne and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flightatop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, atragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, he...more
As a world-class equestrienne and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flightatop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, atragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, he...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
March 30th 2004
by Harper
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I really tried to muddle through this one but had to give up about 1/3 of the way through. I've had another Sara Gruen novel, Water for Elephants, highly recommended to me, but it'll take a lot of convincing to get me to read it after this one! (Not that anyone cares enough about this to try to convince me...:-)
To me, it read like one big cliche. Woman has horrible riding accident and loses beloved horse (which has an unusual white brindle pattern that was described as "striped" often enough to...more
To me, it read like one big cliche. Woman has horrible riding accident and loses beloved horse (which has an unusual white brindle pattern that was described as "striped" often enough to...more
5 likes · like · see review
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After I loved "Water for Elephants" I really thought this would be another great book. But, the main character was SO annoying. No one person could possibly be that incompetent in every area of their lives: marriage, parenting, relationship with her own parents, business, romance. She was a failure at everything and she never seemed to learn from her mistakes. Read "Water for Elephants" instead!!
31 likes · like · see review
I once had a gentleman friend extremely fond of the phrase, "Over the top," although he pronounced it, "Overrrr de TOPP," for reasons I won't go into.
In any case, that phrase recurred in my brain as I read this book. Gruen is a good writer, but an editor really needed to slap her hand away from the crisis button during the review of this book. I mean, the main character is getting divorced, barely on speaking terms with her parents, oh wait, her father is dying so that helps things in that scena...more
In any case, that phrase recurred in my brain as I read this book. Gruen is a good writer, but an editor really needed to slap her hand away from the crisis button during the review of this book. I mean, the main character is getting divorced, barely on speaking terms with her parents, oh wait, her father is dying so that helps things in that scena...more
*re-reading 10/12*
oh, horses. i do love them. the writing stood up, which was nice to see. i love the idea of harry, of eve and flicka . . . mutti and - i wish there was more resolution with regards to annemarie and pappa. i still didn't like how that ended. i don't feel like there was peace. i wanted her to bring him to the stall with his carrots. i liked jean-phillipe better.
of course, i went out and rode my horse after finishing this. someday he might be balanced enough to complete even a tr...more
oh, horses. i do love them. the writing stood up, which was nice to see. i love the idea of harry, of eve and flicka . . . mutti and - i wish there was more resolution with regards to annemarie and pappa. i still didn't like how that ended. i don't feel like there was peace. i wanted her to bring him to the stall with his carrots. i liked jean-phillipe better.
of course, i went out and rode my horse after finishing this. someday he might be balanced enough to complete even a tr...more
Oct 15, 2007
Kerry
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of the author
I was intrigued by this book, because I've heard such great things about the author (this is the lady who wrote Water for Elephants) and was curious as to her writing style. I ended up finding it a bit jarring, but perhaps I'm not used to the first person account (though I've never had this much of a problem with it before). The story itself was interesting, though some parts seemed a bit too easily fixed. What I mean by that is that the main character gets herself into soooooo much trouble and...more
Aug 26, 2007
treehugger
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
horselovers everywhere!
I DEVOURED this book - from start to finish it took me about 3 days, and I'm almost through with its sequel. It's a new take on an old theme - horses, illegal activities, danger, mystery, romance, and riding, riding, riding! I couldn't tear my eyes away from the descriptions of the horses and the tack and the general horsey-life I left behind so many years before.
And I have to admit, as I read "Flying Changes", the sequel, I continue to have pangs of jealousy and regret at not reaching the leve...more
And I have to admit, as I read "Flying Changes", the sequel, I continue to have pangs of jealousy and regret at not reaching the leve...more
5 likes · like · see review
I read this because I'd loved Water for Elephants SO MUCH that I felt an overwhelming need to read other things written by the author. On the plus side, I can say that it's obvious that Gruen has grown tremendously as a writer, because Elephants
I bought this book because I loved Water for Elephants, but I think my expectations were too high.[return][return]I was horse-obsessed as a kid. This is a book about a woman who loves horses, and who lost her beloved horse in a tragic accident 20 years before and is still living with the consequences. It sounds like a good match. However, the heroine, Annemarie, is completely unlikeable. She's mean, petty and selfish, and drags everyone down with her. Her husband leaves her for another woman, sh...more
Book #21 o 2009
What can I say... I was reading the book and enjoying it and then I just had to go on Amazon to see what the other reviews said and once I read those, that's all I could think about when I went back to reading it. But - what I did like: the imagery. Chapter after chapter I could picture the horses, the barns, the riding lessons, the tack room, the stalls... I even imagined the trainer to look like the one I had in High School. In one of the chapters, describing a riding lesson, I...more
What can I say... I was reading the book and enjoying it and then I just had to go on Amazon to see what the other reviews said and once I read those, that's all I could think about when I went back to reading it. But - what I did like: the imagery. Chapter after chapter I could picture the horses, the barns, the riding lessons, the tack room, the stalls... I even imagined the trainer to look like the one I had in High School. In one of the chapters, describing a riding lesson, I...more
This is a book you'll either love or hate. I haven't seen a reader review that was lukewarm...either the book was highly praised or villified.
I really liked it. I thought Annemarie Zimmer was a wonderful character. She is so completely self-absorbed and in dire need of a good therapist. I found her absolute inability to cope with life hysterical (and her inner self-talk is downright funny...especially her first cooking-for-the-new-boyfriend date with Dan.)
On the more serious side, Annemarie has...more
I really liked it. I thought Annemarie Zimmer was a wonderful character. She is so completely self-absorbed and in dire need of a good therapist. I found her absolute inability to cope with life hysterical (and her inner self-talk is downright funny...especially her first cooking-for-the-new-boyfriend date with Dan.)
On the more serious side, Annemarie has...more
At eighteen, Annemarie Zimmer is a world class equestrian and Olympic contender when she’s badly injured in a jumping accident that ends the life of her beloved mount, Highland Harry.
Fast forward 20 years. Annemarie is laid off from her job and her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Feeling as helpless as she did after the accident destroyed her future plans, she takes her rebellious teenage daughter and returns to her parents’ New Hampshire horse farm and riding academy. There, the vital f...more
Fast forward 20 years. Annemarie is laid off from her job and her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Feeling as helpless as she did after the accident destroyed her future plans, she takes her rebellious teenage daughter and returns to her parents’ New Hampshire horse farm and riding academy. There, the vital f...more
1 like · like · see review
Some books just bring it all back, don't they? That pre-pubescent horse-mad phase that so many girls go through. I certainly did, as did my older cousin, who actually went on to be an owner and eventer. I made do with being a happy accomplice, especially after I displayed no natural aptitude for staying on a horse or pony!
Sara Gruen's novel Riding Lessons took me back to those years of pre-teen longing for an equine companion. Annemarie Zimmer was a champion eventer as a teenager; she and her be...more
Sara Gruen's novel Riding Lessons took me back to those years of pre-teen longing for an equine companion. Annemarie Zimmer was a champion eventer as a teenager; she and her be...more
As I was reading this book I just couldn't get The Horse Whisperer meets Mills and Boon out of my head. I thought the story at the start was similar in that an accident occurred with the rider and horse being hurt, etc.
I just couldn't get that thought out of my head. I felt the writing was very similar in style and content to a Mills and Boon style book. I'm not knocking Mills and Boon books as they can be a good ice breaker when you're struggling with readers block. At least when you're reading...more
I just couldn't get that thought out of my head. I felt the writing was very similar in style and content to a Mills and Boon style book. I'm not knocking Mills and Boon books as they can be a good ice breaker when you're struggling with readers block. At least when you're reading...more
Oct 18, 2012
Kathaileen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Kathaileen by:
Jenn
Shelves:
fiction-novels
I loved Water for Elephants so when my daughter told me she saw this book I had to get a sample, and then I was hooked. The main character, Annemarie, was an Olympics hopeful in equestrian events until a terrible accident. It left her on a long road to recovery and destroyed her beloved horse. Twenty years later, she loses her job and husband the same day her daughter is expelled from school and her mother calls to tell her that her father is dying. She returns home to the ghosts of her past and...more
I loved Water for Elephants, and so decided to read another book by Sara Gruen. I'm certainly not giving up on her, but this book was nowhere near the quality. A lot of it I ended up just skimming because it was just so obvious and contrived. For example, the scene where the main character decides to make dinner for the new man in her life--of course, she can't cook but decides to make something incredibly complicated--and gee, what a surprise, she fails miserably, but she and her man end up hav...more
And then another trusted friend let me down. TC Boyle made a Riven Rock a testimony to grim fixations. Sarah Gruen, she of the superb Water For Elephants has chosen an hysterical adolescent in the body of an adult woman to carry the water for her Riding Lessons, but she can’t handle the job, and the reader stays thirsty. To complete the adolescent theme, the problems of Riding Lesson’s imaginary world are solved largely through the love and pursuit of horses. You can call it character that happe...more
I gave two stars for the excellent horse writing of this book. The sweet musings about how nice it was to trace her horse's cowlick between his front legs were so very true. The general feel of a good working stable seemed accurate and believable. This book's strengths were all beautifully on display for the first chapters, but gradually they were drowned under the weight of an impulsive main character who couldn't seem to hear what other people were saying, couldn't seem to curb her narcissism,...more
Aug 02, 2011
Elizabeth
marked it as dnf--did-not-finish
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
audiobook,
dnf-did-not-finish
Pretty close to making this a "DNF".
I picked it up because I loved the author's book "Like Water For Elephants"but this book is not bringing me that same level of enjoyment. I am not certain if it is the book or the person reading it, but I dislike both the main character Annemarie and her Daughter, Eva. Both seem to be in perpetual states of anger - shrieky anger. Some of that may be the person reading who, the actress is just driving me up a wall. Everything is overdramatic.
Annemarie and her...more
I picked it up because I loved the author's book "Like Water For Elephants"but this book is not bringing me that same level of enjoyment. I am not certain if it is the book or the person reading it, but I dislike both the main character Annemarie and her Daughter, Eva. Both seem to be in perpetual states of anger - shrieky anger. Some of that may be the person reading who, the actress is just driving me up a wall. Everything is overdramatic.
Annemarie and her...more
I don't know how I would feel about this book if i had not read Water for Elephants first. I thought it was not nearly so good, and about half way through I got really bored with Annemarie making so many stupid decisions. It just didn't ring true that a woman with a high powered job could ruin the family business in days. i often had the desire to slap her upside the head and say "get over yourself"
On the other hand, given her childhood preparing to be an olympic rider and then the accident that...more
On the other hand, given her childhood preparing to be an olympic rider and then the accident that...more
For me, the redeeming quality of this book was found in the horses. Gruen's portrayal of equine characters through the eyes of the human MC was authentic and spot-on.
If nothing else, she did butt-loads of research -- but I'd like to step out on a limb (without knowing anything about the author) and venture a guess that she has at some point spent a less-than-healthy amount of time around the animals (in the opinion of a sane individual, which I am not). Having done so myself, the quality of the...more
If nothing else, she did butt-loads of research -- but I'd like to step out on a limb (without knowing anything about the author) and venture a guess that she has at some point spent a less-than-healthy amount of time around the animals (in the opinion of a sane individual, which I am not). Having done so myself, the quality of the...more
This is the third Sara Gruen book I've read and sadly, although it really IS the last, it probably will remain so even if she writes another one. I loved Water for Elephants and really liked Flying Changes (which is actually the sequel to this book - I read them out of order) The problem is that I'm beginning to feel like they are basically all the same. If there is another in this series, I probably won't read it. The book is very predictable. In this book, the main character is much less likab...more
This is an enjoyable book and Gruen's strong characterisation skills are present here also, but I didn't find it half as enjoyable to read as "Water for Elephants". I used to read horse books voraciously as a teenager and this book was a trip down memory lane for me in many ways - although my teenage, horse-mad heroines never had sex in the lounge of the riding school! :-)
Annemarie, the main character, returns to her family's horse farm after twenty years of near silence and absence. This book...more
Annemarie, the main character, returns to her family's horse farm after twenty years of near silence and absence. This book...more
May 28, 2011
Caitlin
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who like horse stories with some angst and romance mixed in
Honestly, I thought that this book was terrible. I sincerely hope that Water for Elephants is nothing like this, because if it is, I have no clue how it became a bestseller.
The main character is what did it for me. I was expecting to read about a mom who, yes, was going through difficulties with her family, daughter, etc, but who still had some backbone at least. Annemarie definitely did not display anything like that, throughout the whole novel. She was no better than a teenager, and honestly,...more
The main character is what did it for me. I was expecting to read about a mom who, yes, was going through difficulties with her family, daughter, etc, but who still had some backbone at least. Annemarie definitely did not display anything like that, throughout the whole novel. She was no better than a teenager, and honestly,...more
1 like · like · see review
May 29, 2009
Hollie Robinson
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
To horse girls yes.
Shelves:
books-i-own,
horsey
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Sep 11, 2011
Molly
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
depressing,
contemporary-fiction
Wow, Annemarie's life is one major trainwreck! This is Sara Gruen's first book, but the characters in Riding Lessons were not as solid as they were in Water for Elephants. Annemarie's life basically fall apart when she is layed off, comes home to tell her husband and instead he tells her he's leaving her for a younger woman. Soon after, she finds out that her father has ALS. She takes her rebellious 15 y-o daughter to the family farm to "help out". What she actually does is rekindle an old roman...more
I got this book because I absolutely adored Water for Elephants. It's not that I was disappointed with this book because I wasn't but I didn't find that it had the same pizazz as Gruen's bestseller. I never grew up around horses but I had a friend in high school who had a horse at a barn and went with her a few times to watch her ride. I myself have never rode a horse but when I watch people it looks exhilarating. I found myself really involved in this book and wanting the characters to get alon...more
Oye. I loved Water for Elephants, so thought picking up another book by Sara Gruen would be a safe bet. What a disappointment. The story was totally implausible, the main character was extremely and unbearably annoying, and despite the mess that the main character made of everything, POOF! It was all fixed by the end of the book. The main character annoyed me so much that I didn't want her problems to be fixed. I had an uncomfortable feeling of almost wanting her to fail (which is very unlike me...more
Goddamn, my flaky connection just ate my entire review :|
So, to sum up. Flawless, flawless writing. Flawless characterizations. But the main character.....just as patently unlikable and abrasive on the last page as she was in the beginning. There was character development, but she's just....so, so unlikable. The ending was really too good for what she had earned. She had earned a bittersweet ending, but wound up getting everything handed to her on a platter. Not satisfying at all.
I would love to...more
So, to sum up. Flawless, flawless writing. Flawless characterizations. But the main character.....just as patently unlikable and abrasive on the last page as she was in the beginning. There was character development, but she's just....so, so unlikable. The ending was really too good for what she had earned. She had earned a bittersweet ending, but wound up getting everything handed to her on a platter. Not satisfying at all.
I would love to...more
Aug 09, 2011
Natalie
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
horse-books,
favorites
I recently lost two afternoons of potential farm work due to a fabulous gut-wrencher of a horsey novel: Riding Lessons, by Sara Gruen.
Sara is much more famous for Water for Elephants, her New York Times bestseller. I never got around to reading it and all six of the local copies were checked out, so I suppose it’s still quite popular.
But this book – oh, it is unapologetic in its horsiness. She could have dumbed it down and made it a bestseller, perhaps, and I love her so much for keeping it tech...more
Sara is much more famous for Water for Elephants, her New York Times bestseller. I never got around to reading it and all six of the local copies were checked out, so I suppose it’s still quite popular.
But this book – oh, it is unapologetic in its horsiness. She could have dumbed it down and made it a bestseller, perhaps, and I love her so much for keeping it tech...more
I was torn while reading this book because I found the main character thoroughly unlikeable. Every action she took was so obviously a plot device - I could see the consequences of her bad judgment coming a mile away and thought it was unbelievable and insulting to the reader that a character would act in such an obviously illogical manner. That said and main character aside, the writing itself was phenomenal. I sat up until 1am this morning finishing the book because I just didn't want to put it...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| The "Water for Elephants" author.... | 3 | 66 | Sep 22, 2012 06:39pm |
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants has become one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of our time. Readers fell in love with Water for Elephants and its story of Jacob, a young man tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, and Rosie, the untrainable elephant. This instant #1 New York Times bestseller is now available in 44 langua...more
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“I was always searching, always seeking the next big thing, because that was the thing that was going to make everything all right again. And while I was working toward it, it gave me something to think about other than that thing I couldn't put my finger on. But it always came back.”
—
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