I WANT A HORSE I WANT TO LIVE ON A FARM PLZ

This was SUCH a wonderful blast from the past. I read this book growing up and it definitely inspired my love of horses and animals. Such a heartfelt book with very real characters and an intriguing setting. I LOVE the idea of Heartland and what it tries to do. Not only do they heal horses, but the horses heal them. I LOVE it.

I fell in love with these books when I was about 14 or so. My aunt bought me the first one and this is probably the first series I kept up with, waiting for the new book to come out. I was sad to see the series end and still have the final two special editions to read, but I was glad they allowed Amy to age throughout the series instead of shifting focus to younger characters like in Thoroughbred. Although, with this series I don't think it would work very well... Anyway, I am excited for the television show based off of these books. Since it airs on Canadian television, I watched the first couple episodes on Youtube, however I want to order the seasons. These books have taught me a lot about horses and herbal remedies; I even kept my own journal with a list of them and what they are used for.

Read probably all of these books when I was around 10 years old, used to borrow the max I could take from the library every week. I absolutely loved them! Would actually like to read one again and see what I make of it as an adult!

Read this entire series as a kid. Loved them all. Plan to reread this year!

This book is well... interesting. It gets exciting when you find out her mom dies, but the rest is sort of boring. Sure Sugarfoot is dying (don't get me wrong I really do love horses),but he already made his choice. He wanted to die! I'm not saying suicide is good either. It's so hard to get my point across.
I just didn't like it that much.

So, first off I am reading these books because a friend recommended them and I am rather fond of the TV show. So I'm going to review this books in two parts, first for potential readers (or parents of)in the actual age group it's intended for and then as an adult reading this series.

In this book we focus on Amy, who lives on a horse farm and cares very deeply about her four legged friends. Then, her mother dies in an accident, which is one of the major occurrences in this book. This book deals a lot in grief, and would probably be upsetting to some readers in the age brackets. The book is fairly fast paced.

As an adult, I do note that the actual writing comes across clumsy. While I am a big fan of teen books, I usually steer clear of children's and preteen's, so my expectations are probably a little higher than most. When I've delved into younger books, it's typically with Diana Wynne Jones or Vivian Vande Velde, two authors who even when writing for a younger audience still hold a certain level of flow and rhythm in there writing. I'm afraid that this book lacked flow or rhythm and while the story itself was interesting, sometimes sentences were rather jarring or awkwardly phrased.

Overall, though, it still held my interest in the same way the TV show does and as quick and simple books I think I will continue reading this series.