Devil to Ride (Jinny of Finmory # 2), by Patricia Leitch

[rachelmanija]

The second book in the series was unexpectedly depressing and annoying.

Jinny turns out to be terrible at riding Shantih, who has horse PTSD, and spends the entire book struggling with no useful help from anyone. Ken, the vegan hippie, is great at riding Shantih and she loves him, but he thinks horses shouldn't be ridden because it's unnatural so he's not much help. Adults lecture Jinny on how Shantih is dangerous and Jinny is doing everything wrong without offering any actual assistance.

Then new girl Clare breezes in with her horrible wealthy family. They're a bunch of mean, snobbish bullies, but Clare is an excellent rider so Jinny gloms on to her, partly out of sheer desperation and partly because she's seduced by Clare's glamour and competence.

Meanwhile, a pair of rare ospreys nest in a hidden valley, and Jinny's family is recruited to guard their nest and keep it secret from people who would love to destroy it and take the eggs as souvenirs. Jinny is extremely absent-minded or possibly has ADHD and is absolutely terrible at remembering to do things or focusing on things she's not interested in, but she's required to take turns guarding the ospreys alone for hours. She's also warned a million times not to tell Clare about the ospreys, no matter how desperate she is to befriend her so someone can help her with Shantih. Guess what happens.

The entire book revolved around some of my least favorite things: thuddingly obvious moral lessons, characters criticizing someone who's doing something badly while refusing to help out, a totally predictable and unfun disaster waiting to happen for the entire book, bad things happening to endangered animals, and people being set up for failure and then criticized for failing.

I bought the entire series on the strength of the first book and am really hoping this was not a mistake. The next one looks like it might be depressing too. Debating skipping to book 4, which involves magic.

Comments

[klwilliams]

Ugh. It sounds horrible. I hate those kinds of books, too.

I was surprised today when a book arrived that Chaz had bought (recommended by Ellen and Delia), that turned out to be a copy of one of my favorite books as a teen: The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope. I may even have a copy in the morass of the clubhouse. I'm looking forward to reading it again. It must have stood up to time if they're recommending it.

[sovay]

I was surprised today when a book arrived that Chaz had bought (recommended by Ellen and Delia), that turned out to be a copy of one of my favorite books as a teen: The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope.

w00t!

I have read it multiple times over the years and it holds up extremely. The Sherwood Ring (1958) isn't as weird or as complicated, but I still like it quite a lot as well.

[klwilliams]

I love The Sherwood Ring, too.

[rachelmanija]

I love that book.

[cyphomandra]

Oh now I remember that I have read this. The osprey plot was painfully obvious and inevitable. I look forward to hearing what the latter ones are like though!

[rachelmanija]

I guess you stopped there, huh?

[cyphomandra]

I miiight have started the third (it was a three in one) but didn’t get very far.

[rachelmanija]

That does it, I'm skipping to # 4.

[sovay]

characters criticizing someone who's doing something badly while refusing to help out

Pthbbbbt.

[rattfan]

read the first three a long time ago but don't remember any more beyond that. It was sufficiently long ago that they may not have been written yet. Don't remember the plot of this one at all. Third one involves a younger girl from the city [forget which one] who comes to stay and wants to learn to ride Shantih. She has a crippled leg. Don't think Jinny was super keen on this but really don't remember. I liked the ending, which I won't spoil for you, but I thought it was quite positive. Had no idea the series involved magic later as there's certainly none in the first three!

[asakiyume]

a totally predictable and unfun disaster waiting to happen/i> --currently, this is the thing I hate most in TV series.

[st_aurafina]

I do remember the one with the osprey nest being quite bleak in places. Skip to four, maybe? (Although they do all have bleak aspects to them, if I'm remembering correctly. I still loved them, maybe because Jinny was so real compared to the characters in the Pullein-Thompson books which were everywhere.)