My copy of this book is a hand-me-down from my grandmother, and boy, has the poor thing seen a rough time. The binding of the pages is split in one spot, so the book kind of opens in half with a large gap. I always try and post the cover photo of the book that matches my own, and when I was looking up The Horse Whisperer I found out that my copy might actually be a First Edition. I can't confirm that it is for sure, but a neat thing to find out nonetheless.
The novel itself is quite good and follows a number of characters after a tragic accident and their "recovery". The opening scenes were hard to read as it details the accident that sets the premise for the rest of the book. Personally I thought it was horrific because I LOVE horses and reading the details was really upsetting. After that the story most closely follows the mom, Annie, and her daughter Grace, and their thoughts and feelings about the horse Pilgrim, their situation and the people around them.
In hopes to mend the horse Pilgrim and in turn, her daughter's heart and spirit, after the accident, Annie takes them to Montana to get help from Tom Booker; "The Horse Whisperer". I was surprised that the story focused more on Annie, than Grace, for the majority. It covers a lot of aspects of their strained mother-daughter relationship. Annie is a hard-working mom (no problem with that), but it has alienated her daughter Grace who has more of a bond with her father, Robert. It delves a lot into Annie's past, her life before the she met Robert, her present situation and desires for the future.
As the story unfolds, you don't get the same perspectives from Grace. In addition, you also get the perspective of Tom Booker as well, which makes the novel more focused on Annie and him than anyone else. Which was odd for me, because I thought the book was to be about Grace and the horse, but I enjoyed the direction it went anyway.
The ending was absolutely NOT what I had expected. And to avoid giving away too many spoilers, I will only say that the happy ending Annie wanted in the beginning, to mend Pilgrim and at the same time, Grace, does come to fruition, but that isn't even the end of the book. A must read if this post intrigues you.
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The movie adaptation of The Horse Whisperer was released in 1998, three years after the book was published. Frankly, it fell short for me. Despite being almost 3 hours long, and starring a great cast which includes Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Neill, Chris Cooper and a young Scarlett Johansson, I just couldn't get into it. To make my point clear on how much I wasn't diggin' it; I cross-stitched while I watched it. I don't cross stitch during movies I either like or haven't seen before. Yeah.
The relationships, which were well thought out and backed up by each character's past in the book, seemed very forced in the movie. The only performances I enjoyed were Robert Redford as Tom Booker and Scarlett Johansson as Grace. And the slow-building, but enticing romance between Tom and Annie (Redford and Thomas) which is the core story line of the novel, was completely lack-luster for me. It seemed the most forced of all the interactions in the movie.
All, except for a few, of the core plot points of the novel were in the movie, so in that aspect it was pretty faithful. The one big one that was missing was what happens between Annie and Tom that made the end such a surprise to me. The movie ending was drastically different and I really wish it hadn't been. It might have salvaged the movie as a whole for me if it was true to the book at least in some fashion. My husband watched the ending with me and asked how the book ended. I told him and he said: "Well considering the main actor also directed and produced the movie, I'm not surprised it didn't end the same way as the book." I totally agree with him!
Next Book: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
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