Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, Read by the author

I was a huge fan of The Glass Castle so I was looking forward to this new book by Jeannette Walls. I heard the author speak at the Alex Award program a few years ago and enjoyed listening to her. In this "true life novel", Walls tells the story of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, from stories she heard from her own mother. Most of the book is based on fact, but, of course, she claims it's based on storytelling, so some is embellished. Lily had a fascinating life. She was breaking horses on the ranch at a young age and at age 15 rode for a month on a horse to get to her first teaching job. She learned to fly airplanes, teach unruly kids, and hold a pistol up to anyone who confronted her. She was suckered into a bad first marriage and found a real man to love her with her second marriage. All in all, Half Broke Horses is a satisfying frontier tale about a strong woman who makes it, yet somehow fails in raising her daughter, who ends up being the author's mother in The Glass Castle.