Jack 💜 reviewed Misty's Twilight (Misty, #4) by Marguerite Henry
A history book with no zest
1 star
Maybe I just went in with the wrong expectations, because a title like “Misty’s Twilight” and knowing this is the fourth and last book of the series led me to believe that this would be all about Misty’s golden years, rather than a completely different horse. Oh well.
This book was written decades after the third installment, and it’s about a dermatologist dragging her kids to Chincoteague to fulfill her childhood dream of owning an island pony for herself. The entire first third of the book plays out as a bizarre “remember when?” of the characters pointing at things and saying something along the lines “wow, remember when this happened in the book?”
Gone is Henry’s descriptive style - “Misty’s Twilight” reads as cold and clinical by comparison. I had to double check to make sure this was the same author. It’s just so passionless.
The worst part is that …
Maybe I just went in with the wrong expectations, because a title like “Misty’s Twilight” and knowing this is the fourth and last book of the series led me to believe that this would be all about Misty’s golden years, rather than a completely different horse. Oh well.
This book was written decades after the third installment, and it’s about a dermatologist dragging her kids to Chincoteague to fulfill her childhood dream of owning an island pony for herself. The entire first third of the book plays out as a bizarre “remember when?” of the characters pointing at things and saying something along the lines “wow, remember when this happened in the book?”
Gone is Henry’s descriptive style - “Misty’s Twilight” reads as cold and clinical by comparison. I had to double check to make sure this was the same author. It’s just so passionless.
The worst part is that the protagonist, Sandy, represents the worst kind of horse owner (aka stinking rich). She sends Twilight to a trainer for three weeks without doing any kind of background check, nor does she bother to make visits or check in on how things are going. Big surprise, Twilight ends up traumatized and emaciated by abusive training methods. A completely avoidable situation that Sandy only blames the trainer for.
It’s weird to read about a couple kids visiting taxidermy Misty in the fourth book of the Misty series, right? I’m not the only one who thinks that’s weird?