Book Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

I love this so much. I'm not really sure that I am going to express it well. Puck lives with her brothers, Gabe and Finn. Their parents were killed by the capall uisce. Sean works and lives on Malvern's horse stables. His father was killed riding a capall uisce in the Scorpio Races. Both are competing in this years races with a lot riding on the outcome, and both of them have reason to want the other to win.

Maggie Stiefvater always uses beautiful language. I can imagine what the horses look like, how the island smells and looks and it just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. The setting itself is both beautiful and terrible and I felt like the island was it's own character. 

I love Sean and Puck and the slow development of their friendship and feelings for each other. I'll admit Sean wasn't my favorite in the beginning but as I read about his feelings for Corr, saw him fight with Mutt and his feelings for Puck develop I found him more interesting. I'm always a major fan of character development and I really enjoyed watching Puck come into her own. I love Finn, George Holly and the Bodley sisters. They are amazingly quirky, smart and likable. 

I also really liked the author's note where she describes how hard it was for her to try and write the water horse story prior to figuring out that she needed to extract the bits she wanted and forget about the things she didn't. I think it can be really helpful to other writers (particularly young ones).