LS5603: Fantasy 2—“The Scorpio Races" By Maggie Stiefvater

1.     BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stiefvater, Maggie. The Scorpio Races. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2013. ISBN 978-0545224918

2.     PLOT SUMMARY
            On the island of Thisby, once a year, there is a race with capaill uisce, carnivorous water horses, a deadly race where all compete for the esteem and prize of winning. There are two main characters—Sean, a young man who owns nothing but has a gift with the water horses and has won three races prior to this one, and Puck Connolly, a girl who has never even watched the races but enters to keep her family together. The story follows their lives over the month of November, when capaill uisce are taken from the sea and trained for the race, and how the water horses profoundly affect the path both their lives are on.

3.     CRITICAL ANALYSIS characters, plot, setting, theme, style, authenticity

            The characters are somewhat uninspired but they have distinct personalities. Puck, like many girls in YA fiction, is deeply stubborn, gets angry and defensive about things she’s passionate about (like her family when under fire), is pretty—but not in a way that most people notice, and not particularly to herself--, has a connection with horses, and garners the main male protagonists attention through no real effort on her part. She also has a problem with authority figures, which is basically a trope in YA fiction. There is nothing wrong with any of these personality traits, other than they make Puck interchangeable with so many other YA heroines. On the bright side, she will no doubt be someone teen girls can empathize with. Sean is talk, dark, brooding, and handsome, and does everything a male counterpart should do. He is deeply mysterious, and loves horses. His world revolves around horses.

            The plot is straightforward—horses need to be trained, and there are difficulties. Problems in Puck’s family intensifies the situation. As long as one doesn’t think too much about what is going on, like why don’t people have better fences after hundreds of years of capaill uisce attacks during two months of the year, especially when they kill off people in the night, is a question left unanswered. It really seems like Thisby needs more engineers and not horse riders. It is, I suppose, a nice enough story, and a light read. While the danger aspect is kept up throughout the entire book and makes for an intense read, there aren’t any deep prevailing themes that will make the reader think once the book is put down. Not that all books need to be thinking books, but this book has been set next to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I expected a little more substance, when in reality it seems closer to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. A romance with horses.

            This fantastical book will certainly appeal to those who love animals, particularly horses. It seems to skew towards a female demographic for readers, though male readers would also enjoy the danger and the thoughts of stoic Sean. It seems like a slightly more grown-up horse book compared to the ones meant for children. If horses do not hold that mystical sway over the reader to begin with that they seem to for so many girls, it might not be the best read.

It was well-written, and Stiefvater does an excellent job of world-building for the water-horse mythos, something that is not common enough for readers to understand without a lot of exposition, yet she does it in a way that feels effortless and is engaging to the reader.
4.     REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

·         From School Library Journal: "Upon the sea-battered and wind-swept isle of Thisby, fall brings the famed and feared capaill uisce, or water horses, and with them, death . . . The author takes great liberties with the Celtic myth, but the result is marvelous.."

·         From Booklist: "A book with cross-appeal to lovers of fantasy, horse stories, romance, and action-adventure, this seems to have a shot at being a YA blockbuster."

5.     CONNECTIONS

Other books by Maggie Stiefvater

• The Raven Cycle
• The Raven Boys
• The Shiver Trilogy
• The Gathering of Faerie series