The Scorpio Races: A Review

I think I’ve found a new favorite. Never did I think I would say that a book about racing flesh-eating horses would earn five stars, but, as you can see, it has. Honestly, I have no words, just praise and fangirl squeals. 

Maggie Stiefvater has a way with words. She turns them into poetry, into vivid landscapes and pictures that are practically blinding with their vibrancy. Seriously, I could fall in love with the very words themselves and I would be content. 

“My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand. I am so, so alive.” 

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater

Sean

Gosh, I love him so much. You know those snarky, quick-witted characters who always have some mischief brewing behind their eyes? Well, he’s not one of those. He’s quiet, sure, observant, and gentle. Instead of falling in love with his sass, I fell in love with how different he was compared to every other male character out there. There’s a quiet strength to him. He’s faced a lot, and all he wants is the sea, his capall, and his father’s home. There’s something refreshing about him, like the sea, I guess. He’s just amazing, ok?

“My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.”

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater

Puck

This girl is amazing. Honestly just amazing. She’s spunky, rough around the edges, but also lonely and trying her best to fill a position she shouldn’t have to. She’s this survivor that isn’t hardened. She feels, and it’s wonderful. There’s so much raw determination from her, but she’s not stupid. In some ways, she reminds me of myself, and even more so of who I’d like to be.

In Conclusion

There’s just something so simple and wonderful about this book. There’s no overly convoluted plot, no silly romance–the romance is GOLD, ok?!–and everything is just rich in simple detail. It’s not the sort of book to sweep you in with action, passion, or plot twists. But it’s GOOD. It’s a slow burner, which I loved. Everything happened at a normal pace, it all made sense, and I loved it. It’s the sort of thing you’d read on a rainy day because it will simply make you happy. And some of my favorite quotes, just cause…

“You two are a strange pair. You are a pair, aren’t you?”
“We’re in training.”

“Does anyone ask you why you stay, Sean Kendrick?”
“They do.”
“And why do you?”
“The sky and the sand and the sea and Corr.”

“There are moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life and there are moments that you think you’ll remember for the rest of your life, and it’s not often they turn out to be the same moment.”

“Do you know how to wrap a leg?’
‘I was born wrapping legs,’ I say stiffly, because I’m insulted.
‘Must’ve been a challenging delivery,’ Sean notes.”

“Clutter is my natural habitat.”

“As the sun shines low and red across the water, I wade into the ocean. The water is still high and brown and murky with the memory of the storm, so if there’s something below it, I won’t know it. But that’s part of this, the not knowing. The surrender to the possibilities beneath the surface. It wasn’t the ocean that killed my father, in the end. The water is so cold that my feet go numb almost at once. I stretch my arms out to either side of me and close my eyes. I listen to the sound of water hitting water. The raucous cries of the terns and the guillemots in the rocks of the shore, the piercing, hoarse questions of the gulls above me. I smell seaweed and fish and the dusky scent of the nesting birds onshore. Salt coats my lips, crusts my eyelashes. I feel the cold press against my body. The sand shifts and sucks out from under my feet in the tide. I’m perfectly still. The sun is red behind my eyelids. The ocean will not shift me and the cold will not take me.”

Have you read The Scorpio Races? If so, what do you think of it?