Riding Lessons

Much like Sara Gruen’s character Jacob Jankowski in Water for Elephants, Annemarie Zimmer is stripped down to nothing when the story begins. Everything that was once constant in her life is falling apart. But this isn’t the first time Annemarie has lost everything. When she was eighteen she was a champion event rider, headed to the Olympics. Her partner and soul mate, Harry, was remarkable for more that his abilities in the arena. Harry, Annemarie’s horse, was a very rare brindled Hanoverian who most of us would just called “striped”. Annemarie and Harry were like two halves of a whole. She loved him from first sight, and he performed for he like he was born to be her horse alone. Annemarie and Harry had a horrible fall during a competition. Annemarie was paralyzed, and Harry was injured beyond saving. After Harry’s death, Annemarie felt she had nothing else to live for. She eventually made a full physical recovery, but she was never the same after the accident. And she never rode again.

Now that Annemarie’s life has fallen apart for a second time, she returns to the home of her childhood, and she must face all the old demons she’s been hiding from for so long: her strained relationship with her disappointed parents, who were the driving force behind her career as a rider; Dan, the old love she left behind at eighteen when she pushed away everything connected to her former life; and even the ghost of her beloved horse, Harry, who shows up impossibly in the form of a rescue horse who is yet another rare brindled Hanoverian.

Riding Lessons, like Water for Elephants, is another of Gruen’s books in which the title has very little to do with the story (if you take it at face value.) Just as Jacob Jankowski has never carried water for elephants, Annemarie is neither giving nor taking riding lessons in this novel, since she absolutely refuses to ride any horse after her accident. One could argue that Annemarie has many lessons to learn, but riding lessons is one thing she doesn’t need. I wonder if the rest of Gruen’s books are titled this way.

I found myself very frustrated with Annemarie at first. She starts out the story with her life falling apart, and most of it is not her fault. But she quickly makes a bad situation much, much worse. When she returns to her parent’s horse farm, she proceeds to destroy what’s left of her life. What stopped me from giving up on this book was the arrival of the second striped horse. And that’s very fitting because I think he stops Annemarie from giving up, too. He brings back all the memoires and feelings she’s tried so hard to forget. Annemarie’s passion for the horse almost eclipses the human love story in this book. It was about the time when Annemarie begins to investigate the impossible coincidence of another horse just like Harry showing up in her life that I realized this is a story about healing. Every relationship in Annemarie’s life is broken, and even though she recovers her ability to walk, emotionally Annemarie is still broken, too. Anyone that knows me knows I’m a sucker for a feel-good story, and Riding Lessons delivered. I did not love it quite as much as Water for Elephants (honestly -not even close). There was so much more danger, drama, history, and romance in that novel. I did get great pleasure out of watching Annemarie slowly reassemble the pieces of her life, and much like Water for Elephants, Riding Lessons lets the reader in on that magical connection that happens when a human meets an animal, and that animal has that special something that will help make the human whole again.

Teachers and parents, there is some sexual content in this novel. Something to be aware of if a young person you know shows interest in this book after reading/seeing Water for Elephants. I recommend this book to horse lovers and people lovers alike. It’s an intriguing look into human nature, why people destroy their lives sometimes, and how one character manages to put hers back together.