Flying Changes: A Novel

This was a nice continuation of the first book Riding Lessons. I think it is an interesting story for horse folks or folks who are not interested in horses. It kept my attention and was an interesting fast read.

The variety of emotions expressed in this book really spoke to me on a personal level. I did not enjoy the previous book as much, because I found the characters difficult to relate to. However, in this novel there is much more character development and that made all the difference. Definitely recommend.

For a horsey lover this book just kept me reading.
Great for spending time forgetting reality.

Easy reading
This book being a follow up of "riding lessons" was well presented for any horse lover.

This story was amazing. Annemarie Zimmer has been through a lot, like almost being paralyzed while her horse had to put down. 20 years later she is divorced, has a 16 year old super star daughter, and is living under her mother's roof again. She resolves all of her problems by loving Hurrah, her dead horses brother. Eva doesn't know what to do with herself being a pro equestrian, and annemarie is supposed to be helping her. In the mean time, Annemarie is trying to get Dan to purpose to her, because she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, and his passion for saving horses. You should totally read this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think Sara Gruen is a wonderful author and knows how to craft an engaging story. I was never bored with this book, and enjoyed the read. However I felt the beginning is much stronger than the end. No, the characters are not very likeable (except for Mutti, few appearances she makes), and the sequence of events, while they keep one’s interest, are hardly realistic. But then again, I guess that is why we read books. By the end especially, I was wishing there was more content involving the horses, as they seem to serve more as a setting for the plot instead of the focus. I am still planning to read Riding Lessons, the first book.

After reading Water for Elephants, which I adored, I immediatly went to the store and ordered Sara Gruen's other 2 books; one of which being Flying Changes. I was disappointed from the get-go. It was less than sophmoric and drab. I forced myself to keep reading thinking "It's gotta get better - look at how genious Elephants was." That'll teach me to think. I gave up on it yesterday after getting about 3/4 of the way through it. I started "Where's My Wand" and am extremely pleased. I'm afraid to even open the other Sara Gruen book - it may just lie under my bed in and hide in shame.

I liked Water For Elephants even though there were some technical problems with it, but Flying Changes is so boring I didn't make it past pg. 11 before I started skimming and by pg. 25 still hadn't found any connection with this book. I'll put it up for resale.

Too much description of small things and every move the horse makes is kind of a hint that there isn't enough story to make this thing move. It seems Gruen is trying to show us how much about horses she knows. Well, I have horses and work with them every day so this book becomes redundant to my life. I'd like to read a book where something I know nothing about is happening.

But don't expect miracles - particularly if you're opening the book expecting, as I did, to be immersed in an engrossing horse story about a Nokota named Smokey Joe. I don't enjoy speaking badly of a novel knowing full well how much blood, sweat, and tears the author has poured into it by the time it reaches the shelves. But I have to do so about Flying Changes in all honesty.

It truly would have been a good story but for its spineless heroine and her utterly insufferable, childish, worthless brat of a kid. I tried - really I did - but I simply could not find anything to like about either Annemarie or Eva. You'd think that someone who had lived through an injury as traumatic as Annemarie's and somehow - inexplicably, miraculously - WALKED away from it with a completely functional body would spend a little more time giving thanks for the simple pleasures of life. Like the ability to carry on a conversation with her own voice, or take herself to the bathroom, or wash her own hair, or put on her clothes unassisted, or pick up a pen and sign her own name, or the million other tiny things the majority of able-bodied people take totally for granted that are no longer an option for a quadriplegic. (Never mind being able to actually mount a horse and ride.)

These things don't even remotely register if you're Annemarie Zimmer. Annemarie has much more important things to do - like navel-gaze, obsessively search her reflection in the bathroom mirror for flaws only she would care about, hyperventilate, guzzle glasses of alcohol whenever the least little thing goes wrong, and whine. Mostly the latter. About her divorce. And about her ex-husband. And her ex-husband's new wife. And her ex-husband's new wife's new baby. And her daughter, who doesn't respect her even though lifting a finger to do some actual parenting is completely beyond Annemarie's capabilities. And her browbeaten boyfriend, who's gone too much saving the lives of horses otherwise condemned to slaughter and neglect. And the ring said boyfriend isn't producing fast enough to pacify her narcissism because - God forbid - he's busy tending to those rescued horses.

If her mother isn't enough to make any sane reader want to pitch the book across the room never to be picked up again, there's Eva. I have honestly never encountered a character more spoiled, sheltered, self-absorbed, short-sighted, or generally impossible to live with for several hundred pages than this girl. Forget enrollment in a prestigious show barn - she needs to be slapped so hard she sees stars, and then shipped off to boot camp until she learns that other people inhabit the planet besides herself. I am absolutely certain that if I had behaved as Eva did - first when she took her mother's elderly former champion for a morning joyride and knowingly endangered his life for no other reason than kicks and giggles and later at the hotel the night of her unfortunate three day event - neither my mother nor my riding instructor would have let me near any horse ever again. And rightfully so. Anyone who behaves as childishly and selfishly as Eva does not deserve the privilege of working with such beautiful animals. I don't care how gifted an athlete they are or what is going on in their personal life.

I was beyond caring about what happened to mother or daughter by the closing chapters, let alone hoping for good things to befall them. Whatever poignancy might have been achieved via the story's climax was spoiled for me by the fact that neither of them seemed inspired to use the tragedy as a wake-up call in any way, shape, or form. And the fact that both basically had everything they wanted throughout the course of the book just deposited in their laps shortly thereafter.

To add final insult to injury, I picked up this book expecting (perhaps naively) to read an engaging story about a Nokota gelding, Nokotas being one of my favorite breeds and very rarely mentioned in fiction. But because the entire thing is delivered through Annemarie's eyes and thoughts, over half of the plot is devoured by her various neuroses before Smokey Joe and Eva even approach a ring. Joe makes a grand total of perhaps four appearances in the novel - which is rather laughable considering that he and Eva are supposed to be the main attraction.

Setting Annemarie and Eva aside for a moment, Sara Gruen's writing style is for the most part enjoyable, and it's clear that she was really trying hard to find her voice when she wrote this one. I do give her credit for that much, at least. I just could not find an emotional anchor in this novel; I found it impossible to empathize on a personal level with any part of it. If nothing else, as others have mentioned, Flying Changes might be considered a good summer read - something to toss in the beach bag and set aside when a game of sand volleyball proves more interesting than whatever silly dramas are consuming Annemarie and Eva at that particular moment. A much more patient reader than I might consider it worth a second go-round. Speaking for myself, I'm just proud to have made it to chapter 20.

I love, love, love horses, and, so, anything with a reference to a horse in the title gets my attention. After reading Gruen's first one, Riding Lessons, I wouldn't have purchased this one, but someone gave it to me. So. I read it and liked it for a while. The author seems to know a great deal about horses, and that part of the book is good. However, her humans are ridiculously silly and unlikeable. The main character, Annemarie, is a big whiny 40 year old baby, making unbelievable stupid decisions, and her daughter, Eva, is a spoiled brat who happens to ride horses better than an advanced Olympic winner, at 17, doing complicated dressage work it takes years and years to develop--she does it the first time she rides a horse no one else can stay on. This is so wildly unrealistic it's laughable. Annemarie's boyfriend, Dan, is a pasteboard fabulous guy who puts up with whatever weirdness she can throw at him and adores her in spite of her ludicrous rejection of him. But, never fear, Annemarie gets her guy and bonus baby (alas, she can't have her own), Eva gets her horse and excellent trainer aimed at the Olympics, and despite terrible tragedy and lots of tears, everyone ends up happy, happy, happy, galloping off into the future, jumping fences with no hands, saddle, or bridle. Come on.

I always like books about groups of interesting people - in this case, competitive horse jumpers. As about a book about them, this one does not really say enough about that life.
It is also about a neurotic mother who had a horrible riding accident that ended her career and her daughter who has all the potential to be better than her mother only if the mother will let her. This is where the cliques start coming in - she is divorced with a boy friend, the daughter is rebellious and acts out.
All the challenges happen at once. She has to rescue a horse at the same time she is suppose to watching a mare about to foal. Of course the new boy friend rescues horses - how clique can that be. The daughter gets to train for competition but of course only she can ride the best horse who has the best chance of winning. Of course something happens to the ex-husband, etc., etc.
It is a fast read and relatively well done for description. I wish she had spent just a little more time describing the scene - the jumping ring and the other horses, but that might have been too much. The author does the conflict between the mother and daughter well, but all the rest was stretched a little too far. The mother is just way over neurotic and I really did not need page after page of her nuttiness.
I do not think I will bother with the first book.

In this sequel to Riding Lessons, we rejoin Annemarie, Eva, and Mutti who are trying to carry on after the death of Annemarie's father (Mutti's husband) and make the riding stable they own a successful business. While Annemarie continues to heal from her long ago accident, she also needs to contend with daughter Eva's rebellion and try to hold on to her relationship with local vet Dan.

I thought this was a great book. While some readers found Annemarie's character to be annoying and selfish in this first novel, I think they will be pleased with her growth in this book. I also enjoyed that Eva is given a path and seems to mature a bit as well. The one small drawback for me again is the some details of the riding (Eva is performing Olympic level dressage movements on a horse that was not trained to the level either...unrealistic). Overall though, Sara Gruen gets the barn atmosphere right and I felt like I knew the setting and the characters. A great read from a great author!