Half Broke Horses
A True-Life Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jeannette Walls
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By:
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Jeannette Walls
About this listen
2010 Audie Award Finalist for Narration by the Author
Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" ( Entertainment Weekly). Now, in Half Broke Horses, she brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant.
"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At 15, she left home to teach in a frontier town - riding 500 miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.
Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.
Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix audiences everywhere.
©2009 Jeanette Walls (P)2009 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Based on the true story of the life of Jeanette Walls’ grandmother, Half-broke Horses is the endearing tale of Lily Casey Smith, a woman born into poverty in the early 1900s frontier of west Texas. Intelligent, despite her spotted 8th grade education, Smith knows her purpose on earth is more than just breaking-in horses on her daddy’s farm and she sets off across the desert at age 15 to teach children in Arizona. Smith is scrappy and independent, clearly a woman before her time. In her early 20s when she learns that the traveling salesman she married actually already has a wife and kids, she puts her six-shooter revolver with the pearl handle in her purse and hits him with it, giving him a good “pistol-whippin’”.
Walls, the best-selling author of her own memoir The Glass Castle, tells her grandmother’s story in a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense way probably much in same way as her grandmother shared these stories with her. It can be shocking that Smith speaks of her best friend’s death in the same tone as she does of, say, playing a hand of poker, but it’s realistic a snapshot of the era. In her narration, Walls’ accent is a bit mottled a little southern, with hints of other dialects thrown in which can be distracting at times, but it also suits Smith, a girl from west Texas who had an Irish father with a speech impediment.
Smith does find true happiness with her second husband and eventually settles down (if you can call selling whiskey during Prohibition by hiding it under her baby’s crib “settling down”). But this heroine’s adventures racing horses, surviving flash floods and tornadoes, and playing poker will stick with you long after Walls has finished describing them. Colleen Oakley
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In short vignettes, Galvin gives us a deeply personal portrait of the people who lived in a mountain meadow along the Colorado-Wyoming border over its hundred-year history. His portraits illuminate the Western character and evolve a sense of place like no other.
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Reading the Meadow is almost like reading a poem..
- By Shelby Stephens on 04-30-12
By: James Galvin
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Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
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A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
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Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.
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The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
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God's Middle Finger
- Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
- By: Richard Grant
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them - until his last trip.
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Wrong reader
- By Phikeia on 01-05-22
By: Richard Grant
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Claiming Ground
- By: Laura Bell
- Narrated by: Laurie Birmingham
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A transcendent memoir from an author of rare talent, Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground recounts Bell’s time living mostly alone in the hills of Wyoming, where she herded sheep and cattle and battled isolation. A journey to the heart of self, Bell’s work sparkles with shimmering prose and remarkable insight.
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Beautiful writing
- By Rand Hall on 11-01-16
By: Laura Bell
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The Missing
- By: Tim Gautreaux
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this spellbinder by critically acclaimed author Tim Gautreaux, Sam Simoneaux returns from World War I to rebuild his life. But when a girl is snatched from the New Orleans department store where he's working, he hops aboard a Mississippi steamboat to find her - and dredges up ghosts from his painful past.
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The Missing
- By Michael L. Wintory on 07-11-09
By: Tim Gautreaux
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The Longest Road
- Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean
- By: Philip Caputo
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Philip Caputo, who had just turned 70, his wife, and their two English setters took off in a truck hauling an Airstream camper from Key West, Florida, en route via back roads and state routes to Deadhorse, Alaska. The journey took four months and covered 17,000 miles, during which Caputo interviewed more than 80 Americans from all walks of life to get a picture of what their lives and the life of the nation are really about in the 21st century.
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Very Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 03-25-18
By: Philip Caputo
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She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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Coop
- A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
- By: Michael Perry
- Narrated by: Michael Perry
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with 37 acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood - his city-bred parents took in more than 100 foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm - for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.
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Meh
- By dpenney on 12-22-16
By: Michael Perry
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Father and I Were Ranchers
- Little Britches # 1
- By: Ralph Moody
- Narrated by: Cameron Beierle
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The Moody family moves from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Experience the pleasures and perils of ranching in 20th Century America, through the eyes of a youngster.
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Very dissappointed , too much cussing.
- By Lovelessnomore on 05-29-15
By: Ralph Moody
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How I Got This Way
- By: Patrick McManus
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Grab your fishing net and hold onto your funny-bone; you're in for a hilarious romp through the woods with best-selling funnyman Patrick McManus. How I Got This Way is a rib-tickling collection of stories about the outdoors guaranteed to leave you chuckling. Join McManus and his pals on a venture into the Idaho wilderness that includes taking a hike with - ahem - the president of the United States.
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Mark Twain meets Bertie Wooster
- By Snoodely on 07-22-12
By: Patrick McManus
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Ava's Man
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a beloved bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who died before Bragg was born but left an indelible imprint on the people who loved him. Drawing on their memories, Bragg reconstructs the life of an unlettered roofer who kept food on his family’s table through the worst of the Great Depression
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Deeply moving
- By Kate on 08-12-03
By: Rick Bragg
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The Foxfire Magazine, a literary journal first published in 1967 in Rabun Gap, Georgia, was founded on the belief that stories and meaning could be found in Appalachian spaces, not only in classics such as Shakespeare. Filled with poetry and prose from local students and authors, the magazine also featured interviews with relatives and neighbors. These oral histories conducted by students from the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School quickly became the star of the magazine. Now, pulled from the vast Foxfire archive, come twenty-one oral histories from southern Appalachian women.
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Harrowing Story
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In the tradition of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields, Tom Phelan’s We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It is a heartfelt and masterfully written memoir of growing up in Ireland in the 1940s. We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It recounts Tom’s upbringing in an isolated, rural community from the day he was delivered by the local midwife. With tears and laughter, it speaks to the strength of the human spirit in the face of life's adversities.
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Warning: you'll laugh and cry
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An innocent 14-year-old preacher's son is kidnapped by three vile Civil War deserters. When turning-the-other-cheek fails to deter their cruelty, the boy resorts to his own violent behavior for survival, and the retribution he exacts from them casts him in a new struggle, this time for his soul. His redemption comes down to the wisdom of an old man and a small band of Unbroke Horses.
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Underdeveloped characters
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In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.
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The story never fully evolved
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'Tis
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Listen as Frank tells in his own inimitable voice his story of how at the age of 19 he traveled from Limerick to New York in pursuit of the American dream. Despite the abundance of unsolicited advice he gets to "join the cops" and "stick to his own kind", Frank knows that he should educate himself and somehow rise above his circumstances.
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Marvelous
- By Tony on 02-05-06
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The Kept
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In the winter of 1897, Elspeth Howell treks across miles of snow and ice to the isolated farmstead in upstate New York where she and her husband have raised their five children. Her midwife's salary is tucked into the toes of her boots, and her pack is full of gifts for her family. But as she crests the final hill, and sees her darkened house and a smokeless chimney, immediately she knows that an unthinkable crime has destroyed the life she so carefully built.
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A Beautiful, Bitter Pill
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North of Normal
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In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea's family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren't trying to build a new society - they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea's grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.
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Entertaining but Frustrating
- By Nikki on 09-01-21
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My Southern Journey
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From celebrated New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Rick Bragg comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the South. Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, Bragg explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions' varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast.
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Brushed Words
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What listeners say about Half Broke Horses
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Tracie
- 12-24-09
Inspired Work of Art
Jeannette Walls has captured the voice of her grandmother through this excellent novelization of her family history. An inspiring story for men and women alike. Less horrific than her first book (Glass Castle) but equally as engaging. In fact, if you have not read The Glass Castle-- read this first.
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- William
- 05-30-19
A more realistic little house on the prairie
Jeannette Walls writes the story of her grandmother, but since most of the material came from talking to her mother, and because she had to fill in some of the gaps with her own thoughts of what may have happened, she calls this a novel. Lily Casey Smith was born in a one-room dugout in west Texas in 1901 and later her family moved to a ranch in New Mexico. At 11, she was handling the workers, doing the hiring and firing. Her father had been kicked in the head by a horse when he was young and developed a slurred speech that was difficult to understand, but he was smart and read a lot and taught her much about the world. She learned to break horses, was a very good poker player, and became a school teacher. She rode her horse alone for two weeks across the desert to her first teaching job in Arizona and later as a mother of two, learned to be a bush pilot. It’s filled with stories of hardship and rough times, as well as the time when her father was carving a ham for Easter dinner in the dugout, a rattlesnake dropped from the ceiling onto the table, which her father quickly beheaded with the carving knife. She went to Chicago to get away from the rural life and worked as a maid. She met a man and eventually married him. He was a salesman who spent a lot of time on the road, but when Lily was hit by a car and was in the hospital, she found that he actually did not travel, but was married and had another family across town. When that marriage was annulled, she went back west to teach and met and married Jim Smith. She and Jim eventually managed a large cattle ranch for its British owners, but this was during the depression. She scrounged for everything they needed, making chairs and tables out of crates and they managed it well. Then the investors decided to sell the ranch to someone who would end up making it a sort of early dude ranch, and they didn’t fit the right “cowboy” image, so that had to leave. Jim went into business with a garage and gas station and they finally were able to have a real house with running water and a flush toilet. Her father, when he heard, said, “Why would anyone want to crap in their own home.” It just seemed so uncivilized. When they lost the business, they had to move out to manage another ranch with only a broken down house, without running water and she says that she discovered that many of the things that you think you need, are just wants, and when you don’t have them, you find that you don’t need them and get by just fine. Now, that’s a lesson for today. Very interesting book, in some ways reminiscent of “Little House on the Prairie,” but rougher, more realistic, and less idealistic; making it much better to me.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca
- 02-09-19
One of my favorite books EVER
the storytelling is spectacular, the beautiful story is so touching and riveting. This was one of the best books I've ever read. Jeannette storytelling is full of reality and love, I felt like I was right alongside Lily in all of her fascinating life's travels, triumphs, and heartbreaks. I read The Glass Castle first, and like this book as much or more! It says novel, but it's so easy to see that this is what the story really was. Heartfelt thanks and congratulations for writing amd narrating this beautiful masterpiece, Jeannette Walls!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mike
- 06-24-11
Half Broke Horses great
I liked My Antonia because of the historical information. This is similar and better because of the modern references. I recommend this to anyone who likes U.S. history in the 20th century. The author narrating is fine. Some didn't like it, but I did.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Carlos
- 07-30-15
Heartwarming and endearing
I really appreciate the book being narrated by the author. I had read the glass castle and gave it my own voice in my head so hearing about Lily's life in 19th century America directly from the author really fit well. I think the story is fun and heartwarming written in a clear and fluid manner and I would recommend it to any listener who is in historical fiction or interesting novels with strong female leads.
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- T
- 08-25-17
Couldn't stop listening
Jeanette Walls is an amazing writer and narrator and this book doesn't disappoint. I loved listening to the story of her grandmother and living in Arizona myself, I loved listening to the history of Arizona.
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- zhanna lyashchuk
- 09-04-18
Half Broke Horses
Great story. Told as is. Was not buttered up. Only negative thing I have to say is, there were some missing pieces in the audiobook that are in the book.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-18-17
I love family stories
I loved listening to this inspiring and interesting book. Lily is a great example of a strong authentic woman.
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- Donna
- 12-29-11
i am now a total Jeanette Walls fan!
If you could sum up Half Broke Horses in three words, what would they be?
what a story!
What did you like best about this story?
i liked that Lilly's second husband, Jim Smith, was such a decent hard-working guy.
What about Jeannette Walls’s performance did you like?
there is an honesty in her voice. she is extremely pleasing to listen to.
Who was the most memorable character of Half Broke Horses and why?
Lilly - Grandma Smith. what a character!
Any additional comments?
read both of Jeanette books
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- Anne
- 09-02-12
Very interesting book!
Interesting story of a woman from childhood to being a grandmother. I recommend it for anyone who would enjoy looking into an earlier generation in America.
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