Firstly I want to start by saying that I absolutely love and highly recommend Ms. Walls' The Glass Castle. I read this early last year and have loaned out my copy countless times - not to mention I even forced everyone at work to buy a copy for our book club, because yes, I was fascinated by this book and Ms. Walls' tale of coming-of-age, the skedaddle, home-made braces and the scrapes, bumps and bruises she went through to get there.

With that said, I could not wait to get my hands on Half Broke Horses. In this book we go further in time and are now reading about Ms. Walls' maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. The story takes you through Lily's childhood in the early 20th century, all through the desert, living in ranches, teaching at one-room school houses, to the Great Depression and World War II.

Although I will admit to it not being as phenomenal as I found The Glass Castle to be, Half Broke Horses was still very entertaining. It's the type of story that grabs you and the next time you stop to look up you're done with the it...there was never a dull moment.

Lily Casey Smith was an amazing, courageous woman - I'm so glad that Ms. Walls was able to create such a beautiful tribute to her. She mentions at the end of the book that these are stories she remembers hearing from, or of her grandmother, while growing up. She was able to piece them together and fill-in (where needed) with her own ideas - thus the story is labeled fiction.

I absolutely loved how the ending tied in to what we already knew of the Ms. Walls and her eccentric family from The Glass Castle. This was just a fun, light read that I would recommend to anyone who's read The Glass Castle or is a fan of Jeannette Walls. ( )

Crisp, lively writing. An easy great read. ( )

Jeannette Walls has written “a true life novel” based on her mother's mother, Lily Casey Smith. Written in the first person, it reads like a wonderful novel but is based on the life of Lily.

Starting with saving her siblings from a flash flood when she was ten, Lily is a hard-working, hard-living woman who wants no sympathy from anyone, and expects no one to get any from her. She worked harder than most men on the ranches, she took flying lessons, taught in one-room school houses, and married a “crumb-bum” husband first time around, and a solid ex-Mormon the second time. She raised her children the best she knew how. Her daughter, Rosemary, was as headstrong as she was but not as practical, and the book helps better understand the author's mother in The Glass Castle, a memoir of her bizarre childhood.

This is a great read, both as a background to the memoir and as a stand-alone story of a remarkable woman. Photographs at the beginning of each section are a wonderful addition. ( )

Not as great as Glass Castle, but still a fascinating story of the most interesting family out there. This has a historical element Glass Castle does not have. ( )

Half Broke Horses
A True-Life Novel
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
October 2009, 272 p.
978-1-4165-86289

Walls is shaping up to be one of this decades most fascinating storytellers. The adventures of her family in The Glass Castle were mesmerizing and truly an unforgettable read. With a pen that glows with brilliance, her writing in Half Broke Horses is bedazzling. In her words, this is the true life novel of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith who died when she was eight. Half Broke Horses portrays her grandmother’s life told through all of the many stories she heard as a child.

The novel is told in first person from the point of view of her grandmother. The opening chapter begins, “Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” However, no matter what trouble faced Lily Casey Smith, she would have the intelligence, the determination, the answers and always the faith in herself that she would survive.

As the story opens, faced with the onslaught of a flash-flood, Lily has presence of mind to gather her two siblings together and hoists them into a cottonwood tree, where they hang on precariously during a harrowing overnight until the morning. Lily is ten and when her mother sees her three children coming home the following morning, she praises the Lord, the guardian angels and her constant prayer for saving the three.

Lily is perturbed and says to her dad, “There weren’t no guardian angel, Dad.” She knows their survival had nothing to do with prayer and she is quick to explain it was her vigilant fight to save her brother and sister that kept them alive. Lily is a realist, and she believes there was no guardian Angel up in that tree. It was Lily Casey Smith, one tough kid, who was up in the tree making the right decisions.

One other time early in the book, Walls relates a story about her grandmother, when she was fifteen and accepts a job as a teacher. Lily has no degree in teaching, but has enough education to satisfy the school district’s needs. The town is over five hundred miles away, but Lily needs a job. Lily must make the journey on her horse Patches to Red Lake, Arizona, by herself and so she sets out on her trip with a fearless, spunky spirit of adventure.

Walls novel is a touching honest portrait of an idiosyncratically warm and loving grandmother, mother and wife who was raised on the wild side of nature. She was in my opinion “a hoot”. You will love this woman and come to understand that there is absolutely nothing in life that could stand in her way when she sets her mind to it.

Half Broke Horses is an inspirational memoir, and true life-novel that will make you chuckle, weep and simply savor like a warm cup of tea. The greatest challenge in this book I found was not being able to put it down. With my predilection for Jeannette Walls’ writing I eagerly anticipate future releases as my cup of tea is getting cold. ( )