The Scorpio Races

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the Scorpio sea, somewhere in the Atlantic, lies the island of Thisby. It's a small island mainly inhabited by fishermen but it's popular for its capaill uisce and its Scorpio Races. Capaill uisce are fearsome water horses. They feed on meat and blood and they are predators, killers.
The Scorpio Races are held each year in November and they're a tradition in Thisby. They're also dangerous, brutal and the cause of several casualties each year; because of course riders, in these races, compete riding capaill uisce. This year, Kate "Puck" Connolly, has decided to ride too. She wants to delay her brother's departure for the mainland and to save the house they lived in ever since their parents were killed from the capaill uisce. Winning the race would solve all her problems and so she enrolls. But she's a woman and no woman has ever ridden in the races before.
Sean Kendrick is the most experienced and talented horse trainer that the island of Thisby has ever seen. He's lost his father in the races and has won four times with his capall uisce, Corr, He is also the only one who can help and protect Puck in her desperate mission.

No words can be more eloquent than the author's own to describe the intrinsic weakness and strengths of this book.

"Other writers might have different priorities, but for me, the chief goal of my novels is not plot or premise or pacing, but to evoke a certain feeling. I will sacrifice most anything in order to change someone's mood in a certain way. I can't do that without careful navigation of metaphor and character development."
Taken from Maggie Stievater's blog, on "Dissecting Pages for Mood".

Perhaps, the biggest strength (and therein lies the talent) of Stiefvater's writing is that it is nothing but atmospheric. She is able to catapult the reader on the island of Thisby in November. You can feel the wind chafe, the water sprays freezing you to the bone, the smell of fish. She manages to dominate all your senses in such a complete way that you're there, smelling, touching, tasting (the November cakes, yum).
It's the kind of writing that I got enamored of in Shiver. Lyrical, exquisite, it touches you deeply and leaves and indelible sign.

Aside from the beautiful writing, the concept of the story is also very interesting. My experience of water horses was limited to the kelpies from other fairy books and I knew they were dangerous animals that would drown you before you realized it.
The capaill uisce though are dreadful monsters, brutal, fearsome. I was fascinated by the relationship between Corr and Sean, by the total unconditional love of a boy for a being that might kill you in the blink of an eye. In fact, I'd say the main love story in the Scorpio Races is not of the "human kind" but it's about a love based on friendship, trust, sacrifice between a man and a monster.

Much as I liked these aspects of the story and found the second part of the book unputdownable - no, scratch that, I HAD to put it down. The last chapters of the book, especially the ones describing the races got me so agitated I had to shut to the book and take a break from time to time, lest I give myself a stroke.
Unfortunately, the first part was Mountain Everest for me. I barely made it to the top, right before giving up.
It seems like Stiefvater really holds true to her words in the quote up there when she says that the main chief of her novels is not plot or premise of pacing because the pacing is really an issue for about the first 200 pages of the book. And that's A LOT in my opinion.
I deem this to be a big problem because really, I can't even imagine a teen getting over those first two hundred pages and still be interested in the story. If a book is abandoned because it's too slow at the beginning, what is the careful navigation and character development good for, if the reader never makes it to that point?

Nevertheless, I am so glad I did get over that first, looooong, uneventful part and finally got sucked in the story (also, I was fearing for my life, ahem) when I could finally appreciate Stiefvater's writing maturation, if compared to her previous novels, such as Shiver.
I will definitely be looking forward to her future works.