Tuesday, September 13, 2016

"Unrelenting" - A Book Review

I blogged about George Morris' new book, Unrelenting, in May.  Now that I've read the entire book, I thought I'd give you my two cents.  First of all, the book is long.  Some people may have a hard time getting through it but it would be difficult to shorten given all that he has accomplished. It's not that well written, always a pet peeve of mine, since I prefer literary fiction and good writing in all that I read.  This one does not pass that test.  The photos are good and there are many of them which always adds to a book.  The book talks a lot about people in the horse industry, mostly hunters and jumpers, some who are still in the sport, many who have passed away, and others who have moved on to other things.  Nothing gets tended to in any deep way.  It's a surface job more or less, but again, he's had a huge career and the book would be a thousand pages if he really dug deep. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book but I likely won't read it a second time (I do read books I love more than once).  It appealed to me mostly because of the history in the book, things I did not know, information about how difficult certain horses were, which I find interesting.  Dillon is one example, a top show hunter in his day, who was so cold backed he could hardly be ridden at times.  I loved learning about these small tidbits that you wouldn't know about.  The book may be too "foreign" for those who know little about this sport, the people he talks about, the venues, the events. etc.  I loved learning about all of the Olympic Games he was part of and also liked his sparse comments about the 2009 World Cup Finals since I did attend that event in Las Vegas. 

So perhaps I have convinced you, or not, to read this interesting book.  Reading is a great pastime, there is so much to learn out there.  We just need more time. 

You can see the book here.



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3 comments:

  1. "Not that well written." Oh, the irony.

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  2. Agreed - it was very poorly written. I couldn't get through it. After 100 pages, I plopped it back on the shelf.

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  3. I'm with you - I especially enjoyed the tidbits about horses and people I know of and the behind-the-scenes stuff from various events. I didn't particularly enjoy all the personal details of his love life and I DEFINITELY didn't enjoy the bad writing. Too! Many! Exclamation! Points! for starters. I read every word of some of it, skipped other parts and skimmed more. I'm glad it's on my shelf of horse books but I probably won't dive back in anytime soon, either (some of my horse books have been read a dozen times, at least!).

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