I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
Alice Winston lives on a horse ranch in the desert with her father and reclusive mother, while her older sister Nona has run off with a cowboy riding the rodeo circuit. With her sister gone, Alice’s father struggles to make the ranch profitable by boarding the horses of the wealthier women in town. It’s a lot of work for just the two of them, and somehow they make do for awhile. But all of them miss Nona and can’t understand why she’d leave the family and the ranch.
Meanwhile, Alice is dealing with being accepted at school and recovering from the death of a classmate. She experiences her first kiss and her first crush. She tries to make sense of the adults around her. I sympathized with Alice and winced at the all too familiar pains of growing up. I rooted for things to go her way. Sadly, however, life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. Sometimes we just have to accept the way things are.
The God of Animals was Aryn Kyle’s first book.
2008 Spur (Best Western Long Novel)
2007, 320 pp.
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants tells a great story. I loved the story, and I loved the characters. I loved Rosie the elephant. I did not love the explicit scenes, particularly when I had to hear it on an audio CD. I was relieved to find that 
I listened to part of this on an 11 hour road trip, and it was a great way to spend the time. I actually didn’t mind the length of the book, but I did mind the death in the end. It just didn’t seem right to me. I wasn’t ready for that character to leave the scene just yet. Another thing I didn’t care for was Sirius’ whinyness. It really started getting on my nerves. I envisioned him as a noble character, not an overly whiny one.
Blessings is the family home of Lydia Blessing, an 80-year-old woman with strong opinions about the right way to say and do things. Her new caretaker of Blessings, Skip, doesn’t seem to be making the grade in Lydia’s eyes. He’s keeping strange hours and doing his work at odd times. The reason? He’s taking care of a baby. Not his baby, but a little girl that a young couple abandoned at Blessings. Skip doesn’t have the first clue how to take care of an infant, but he manages after awhile and even keeps her a secret from everyone for a time. Then, Lydia finds out. Although shocked at first, Mrs. Blessing’s heart is warmed by the child as well. Will Skip get to keep Faith, the little girl that has won over everyone at Blessings, including Mrs. Blessing, or will the little girl’s mother return to claim her?
Which cover do you prefer? I strongly prefer the UK version (the one on the left) as the US version doesn’t seem to fit the outcome of the story now, does it?
Another Harry Potter crossed off the list! I enjoyed this on CD as I took a couple of trips last week. I had already listened to about 1/3 of it earlier in the year, but the trip was a perfect time to complete it.
