Half Broke Horses is an easy-to-read, fun adventure of Lily Casey Smith and her family, Big Jim (husband), Rosemary, and Little Jim, from Lily's perspective as a ranchhand/manager and teacher in Arizona before WW2.

Half Broke Horses is a quick-paced rendition of some fun, funny, unfortunate, and sad tales that Lily and her family experience in the desert.

What I appreciate most about this is how the author, Lily Casey Smith's granddaughter, Jeannette Walls' lets Lily come through the pages in her voice, in her stories, and in her ways. There is no overt covering up, sugar-coating, or PC-ing the terminology or events. This was Lily's story, told in Lily's voice, in Lily's time. Something that we all need to keep in mind when reading books written from different eras - their version of what is proper is not necessarily ours, but doesn't make them necessarily wrong.

A very well-done book. ( )

A ?memoir? of the writer?s mother. Incredible story.

I remember reading years back Jeannette Walls' first book, her memoir, GLASS CASTLE, and enjoying it greatly. It was a huge bestseller, and, I think, a movie too. HALF BROKE HORSES is neither a memoir nor a biography. Instead it's a novel based on the life of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, born at the turn of the last century, who grew up wild on western ranches in Texas and Arizona, where her father, half crippled, and with a speech impediment, carved a life out of training carriage horses. Lily loved horses, but she also loved learning, and got a teaching certificate at a young age and taught in tiny one-room schools, often clashing with administrators and moving on. Her story continues through the Great Depression and prohibition years. After one ill-fated early marriage (he was already married, with kids) in Chicago, in Arizona she marries a man twenty years older, has a couple of kids, goes back to college, helps her husband run a business, then a ranch, sells a little hooch on the side to make ends meet (and carries a gun), teaches some more, learns to drive - and to fly - moves to the city, then back to the country. Sends her kids off to boarding school. Watches her kids grow up and marry. I mean this is a woman's whole LIFE, and there's a LOT going on here. Remember I said I loved Walls' first book? Well ditto this one. Jeannette Walls is one helluva story teller. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

This book is exactly what it promised to be: a fictionalized memoir, based on the author's oral family history. It follows the author's grandmother's life story, which was a somewhat adventurous one. The story, like all good family histories, has the unmistakable elements of the tall tale (or as my own dad puts it, "telling lies") where the truth has been either stretched or embroidered to fill in the gaps or make boring stuff more interesting, or to interpret events as Fate/God's Will.

The problem for me was that, at the 50% mark (~4 hours of listening), this story wasn't all that interesting, even with all the stretching and embroidering. I could have finished, barely paying attention as I listened while doing housework, etc., but life is just too short and I've got 45 other audiobooks on my acquired-TBR shelf to listen to.

So, DNF at 50%. YMMV.

This audiobook was borrowed from my local public library. It was read by the author, whose obviously amateur performance was still pretty good, and gave the narrative the ring of authenticity. ( )

Here's what I wrote in 2012 about this read: "Great story of a strong woman in the developing American West, of Mary's Mom-Mom era. Mostly creative fiction, but inspired author's grandmother." Quotations in the comments section are my exact Kindle highlights. ( )