A review of Sara Gruen's "Flying Changes", the story of a famly of equestrian women in New Hampshire who are stronger than they imagine.
Flying Changes begins with a peek into the over-crowded mind of Annamarie Zimmer, approaching 40 and taking life at full tilt. Annamarie is part of a horse back riding family with dreams of Olympic Gold. We learn in the first few pages that Annamarie's own dreams of greatness were dashed and turned into fear when she was involved in a terrible freak horseback riding accident. We discover later that this is the accident that caused her favorite horse to be killed and Annamarie to suffer a spinal injury.
We are also given a brief look at the inner core of Annamarie when we learn that she recoved from this spinal injury to ride again, against all odds. Not only that, she sought out the brother of the horse that was killed, and brought him home to ride. Annamarie's quest to discover her own inner strength in spite of her fears is the central theme of the book, in my opinion. Eva, Annamarie's daughter, inherited her mother's natural seat and formidable talent on a horse. Combine that with her age (16), her headstrong nature, her parents' still recent divorce and you have one volatile character. I had some trouble having empathy for Eva's character. As a troubled teen myself, the way the character was written just didn't ring true to me. Solutions to her problems seemed too pat, and the adult reactions around her seemed unrealistic.
Mutti, Annamarie's mother, is the first in this line of headstrong women. A woman of German lineage, she is capable of keeping a cool head in a variety of tough situations throughout the novel. Her steadfast nature and unyielding will act as a nice counterbalance to Annamarie's flighty nature and indecision while she struggles to know herself. You leave the novel feeling that everyone needs a Mutti in their corner. Dan, Annamarie's fiance, seems an insubstantial character until the end of the novel, as if he hovers in the background awaiting his turn. He runs a horse rescue operation, saving horses from the pee farms and glue factories of North America. Because of this, we are told, he is rarely home. For three quarters of the novel his character seems like an afterthought, then in the last 20 pages he suddenly comes to life. I would have liked to have seen more development of Dan to balance the hectic lives of the three main female characters.
The story itself is neither thriller nor romance. This is one of those books that balances delicately on the telling of a good, meandering story. While it takes a few pages to really catch your interest, once it does you find yourself continuing to read to find out what happens to these people whose troubles seem more vibrant than their lives on the page. All in all, I'd say this novel was worth reading in spite of its slow start and intermittent character development. With its strong horse world themes it would also make a nice bridge into adult reading level books for the precocious pre-teen who loves horse novels but is reading above the young adult level.
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