Review: Stay the Distance by Mara Dabrishus

May Contain Spoilers

Review:

I loved this book! It’s all about the horses, horses, horses! It’s also about July’s dysfunctional family, which is puttering along like a car in need of a tune up since her mother, a jockey, skipped the East Coast for California. While her mother is off chasing her dream of riding a winner, July has put her life on hold. She can’t forgive her mother, her father refuses to discuss the situation, and until there’s some kind of closure, Jules just can’t move forward. She loves riding and working with the horses, but she can’t focus on her future. Instead, she just keeps following the summer racing circuit with her dad, reading the racing dailies for any mention of her mother.

July is seventeen, and high school graduation has come and gone. She missed the deadlines for her college applications, so instead of heading off to live on campus with her BFF, she’s stuck working with her dad at the track. Her dad is the trainer for Blackbridge Farm, a hobby for a wealthy New York family. She’s known Beck Delaney, the owner’s son, since she was twelve, and the two have enjoyed an adversarial and eternally competitive relationship. When Beck and Jules make a bet about his new racer, Lighter, she doesn’t expect him to take it seriously and hang around the barns all summer long. As the two of them work together with the horses, their relationship slowly changes. When an unwise financial decision catches up to his father, the future of the stable and Beck and July’s blossoming relationship is suddenly in doubt.

I don’t know how to express how much I enjoyed this book. I loved July and her conflicted, confused view of life since her mother left. She’s been kicking herself in the behind for months, since she missed meeting her mother at the track when her mom flew back home just long enough to ride a horse in a race and then leave again. Without a word to July or her sister. Her resentment for her mother is consuming her, as is her frustration with her father’s lack of communication skills. I felt really bad for her, because when her mom left, it was supposed to be for a few months, not a few years. Her mom is so caught up in her own career that she doesn’t even take the time to call or visit her girls – yeah, that’s just hard to accept, and her mother’s selfishness was almost impossible to forgive.

The horsey bits felt authentic, sometimes a little too much so. When Diver, the horse July has dreamed of purchasing after his racing career is over, colics, emotions batter both Jules and the reader. It’s an ugly thing to see, and reading about it isn’t much better. When she realizes that Kali, a young filly she’s working with, just doesn’t have the heart or work ethic to race, she’s in turmoil every time the horse is put in a claiming race. Will she be coming home at the end of the day, or going off with some stranger? I could relate to her frustration with Kali; it’s frustrating when you have a beautiful horse, that was bred to do something, but it just doesn’t have the heart to do it. I won’t mince words here – it sucks to care for an animal, develop affection for it, and know that it’s just not a good fit, and that if you keep making it do what it doesn’t want to do, the only thing you’re going to do is make it and you miserable. While July has no say in Kali’s future, she still wants to find some solution for the mare that will spark her interest in running so she can stay at the stable.

If you don’t like horses, you will probably be bored with Stay the Distance. While it’s not just about racing, almost every conflict and emotional upheaval in July’s life revolves around horses. They are what drove her mother away, and what keeps her and her father together. They are the catalyst for Beck and July’s summer romance, and they are at the center of her soul. When it looks like everything is going to come crashing down around her, it’s the horses that keep her putting one foot in front of the other, dreading what’s around the corner, but keeping her in forward motion.

Grade: A-

Review copy provided by publisher

From Amazon:

July Carter’s world is perfect from the back of a horse. From the ground, everything is a complete mess: her jockey mom ran off for California years ago, her dad always seems more interested in the horses than in her, and the horse July wants for herself will never be hers.

Even though the New York racing circuit has taught her not to get attached, July can’t help connecting with Kali, a hopeless filly that refuses to run when it counts. When bankruptcy rumors start swirling around the barn, the future is murkier than ever. July can’t stand losing one more thing, and Beck, the barn owner’s son, knows more about the rumors than anyone else. July will get the truth, even if she has to pry it out of him, for Kali’s sake and her own.