I did enjoy this book, but perhaps it just wasn't the sort of book for me. The characters were interesting enough, especially our lead male. I enjoyed reading about the horses and the training bits, because they were knowledgable and interesting to learn about. In fact, they made me want to get on a horse and try to learn something. However, I just wasn't getting as invested in the story line as I hoped that I'd be, and this had nothing to do with the writing. Ever since he was a small child, Alex Ford knew that he liked horses. So, when his father finally bought him one, he was a little beside himself. Even though his parent's went through a rough patch and eventually separated, it was his horse that kept him going. When he was on that horse, he didn't have to worry about anything else in the world. It was just him and the horse. Nobody could judge him, and it was best this way. From a young age Alex had always been fascinated with dressage. He finally works up the courage to seek out lessons, and eventually meets the spoiled and bratty Cleo O'Shea. Cleo's life hasn't exactly been a walk in the park either. Sure, her parents spoil her plenty. but they're never around. They just foot the bill and ship her off to places that are meant to fix her bad decision making. Little does anyone know, that this last place might actually help her gain some perspective. The writing was nice. It was informative, especially the bits dealing with the horses, and it was very descriptive. The characters were described well enough and they did develop, but not in a mind-blowing realizational kind of way. That's not a strike against the writing, but I'll delve farther into that later. Honestly, I didn't find myself feeling attached to any of the characters, as much as I really wanted to. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the story was a bit blah, and I didn't feel like it was going anywhere. I mean, obviously things happened, but it just wasn't what I was expecting and there wasn't very much pizzazz. Pacing-wise, things weren't bad. It wasn't that things were written slowly or all wonky, it was just that I wasn't feeling anything. The characters were also nice and interesting enough. Their lives and backstories were described and detailed very nicely. Truly, we knew a lot about them, but even with all of this knowledge I still wasn't in overwhelming love with either of them. I don't know exactly what it was, but I just wasn't feeling either of them. They both also didn't seem to develop very much either. I found Alex, our lead male, interesting for his love and knowledge of horses, but also kind of boring. While he did come to terms with who he truly was and others found out about it, but it wasn't really because he told them. From the writing we could feel that he was a bit socially anxious and unknowledgable of what to say to most people, but even still, he didn't seem to do very much. It was a bit sad for me. I wanted him to do something, to say something, and he didn't. I was happy for him there in the final pages, but my mind still wasn't blown, you know?Then, our lead female Cleo was a bit annoying. She was so jumpy and all over the place, that I never knew what the hell she was going to do next. Also, she was very spoiled and very bratty, and it really put me off of her character. Surely her character was supposed to come off as the uppity brat who was supposed to come into herself with being surrounded by hard workers and horses, but even there at the end, she was still uppity and annoying. While she did have a small realization, I still don't believe that she was really changed. I can't bring myself to believe it. The synopsis makes this book sound like their meeting each other was vital and that they leaned on each other for support and everything. I didn't take this from the story at all. Sure, they did talk every now and again, and Alex's secret was revealed, but none of it seemed like integral character growth to me. They hung out, yes, but it didn't lead to any phenomenal realizations or confessions. To me they were more acquaintances than real friends as they're described as being in the book synopsis.. Overall, Another Kind of Cowboy was a decent read. The horses were fantastic, and the writing was nice. Sadly, the characters were a bit lackluster and didn't make me feel anything for them. Truly, this book was too blah and understimulating for my taste. There wasn't anything mind-blowingly awesome or any phenomenal realizations. Maybe that was the point. To illustrate that phenomenal things do not happen to everybody. I don't know, but it just didn't do very much for me. ☆☆☆/5Recommend?: If you're a big fan of horses.
I read somewhere that the author started to plan this book as the story of Cleo, the spoiled daughter of absentee parents who is living in a boarding school, and she ended to write about Alex, a gay teenager living in a small town where they barely know what riding is, let aside what dressage means. And sincerely it’s clear that, while Cleo is a nice supporting character, Alex is the real life of this story. Alex’s passion for riding, and dressage, is almost an obsession; and if you read between the lines of his childhood, you will understand that is also an escape from reality. His mother divorced not only her husband, but also her children; Alex is alone in raising two little sister, since not his aunt or his father are of much help, his father even moved in a roulotte in the front garden, probably to not have to live in an house without the woman he loved. But Alex’s father is not a bad man, nor when he is sober or drunk, he is only extremely sad; he is really not able to take care of his children but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love them, and so, when he gets a chance, he brings home an horse, a real horse, for Alex (see living in a country small town? You can have a barn in the backgarden instead of a shed for a dog…). Problem is that, a) the horse is not a dressage horse and b) even if the horse was, there is no one around there that can teach Alex dressage. And so Alex becomes a little champion of western riding, with cowboy hats and boots, all the while dreaming of tight breeches and top hats. If an external viewer can see that, other than being an escape from reality, Alex’s obsession for dressage is also a proof that he has a sensibility that is completely different, and greater, than a normal boy, it’s not until he hits puberty that Alex realizes that he is gay. But there is no “gay” in the small town, no one he knows who is, no one he can relate, same as it was for dressage: dressage and gay are “stranger” things, not “normal”, and if you like them you are not normal as well. Alex’s luck changes when Ivan and Fergus move in town: both former dressage champion, they have a beautiful house with attached horse riding and they are willing to teach Alex. To an adult reader, it’s clear that Ivan and Fergus are a couple, but there is no hint of sex, no kiss, nothing: Ivan and Fergus are two horse lovers who are eager to share their love with the others. They are not an example for Alex of how being gay is, but maybe they are giving him an idea of what being gay and having a career related to horses can be. Alex will discover his sexuality (but only for what concerns kisses) with another teenager, finding out that he is not so strange after all, and that even in the small town where he lives there are other like him, and more than what you will expect. Another Kind of Cowboy is a really sweet and tender story, a romance between teenagers that remains on a teenager level, not adult feelings or issues to ruin the discovery of first love; and even if you read it from an adult perspective, the sweetness is so nice that is good to lose yourself in an innocent world. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003NHRB6I/?...
What do You think about Another Kind Of Cowboy (2015)?
Here is a one-of-a-kind horse story that alternates narrators. Alex is a teen who has worked hard for his status in the riding world, and isn't sure what to do with his leanings toward the precise, not-very-masculine art of dressage riding, nor his growing feelings that he's gay, nor his father's increasing distance and alcoholism. Cleo is a rich, spoiled girl who is sent to boarding school in Alex's town, supposedly to become a better rider, but mostly to ensure that she doesn't get into any more trouble. Alex and Cleo meet when they both end up (for vastly different reasons) training at Limestone Farm, run by Fergus and Ivan, two absolutely wonderful secondary characters. At first, I found it a little jarring that the narrators switched and so did their voices (Cleo in first person, Alex in third). I also started out believing that Cleo was a lot smarter, and so I was disappointed in her shallowness right away -- though maybe that's the point. Regardless of these things, the story kept me turning pages, and should appeal to horse lovers with a little hand-selling. Quoted from a text on horsemanship: "...nature can exist without art, but art can never exist without nature."
—Rebecca
One of the first authors that springs to mind when I think Canadian YA lit is Susan Juby. Her first book, Alice, I Think featuring the amazingly quirky and amusing adventures of a girl named Alice was a hit inside Canada and outside of it (giveaway of the second book of the series here). In fact the main character is so bizarre, that whether you loved her, hated her or questioned her sanity, you most definitely couldn't forget her. It was refreshing to read about a character who didn't try to fit in and preferred to revel in her strangeness. In fact, all of Susan Juby's character's ultimately choose to be themselves (no matter how strange or not strange they are).Another Kind of Cowboy introduced to us more loveable and quirky characters. The novel is told from the point of view of two such characters, namely Alex and Cleo.Alex has wanted to ride for as long as he could remember (in fact, as a child, he used to ride his bicycle around the neighbourhood pretending it was a horse). And, as a cowboy he's got the chance to do for years. But what he really wants to do is dressage (an English style of riding) and now, he's finally got that option. Cleo is rich and bratty. After a rather stupid mistake, she finds herself exiled to a boarding school and enrolled in dressage lessons.The two couldn't seem more different and yet they might just be exactly what the other one needs.(Okay, I realize this isn't the best summary. But trust me, it's much, much better than I'm making it sound). Don't rule this book out if you're not a horse fanatic (I'm not!), it's a fully relatable story about friendship and growing up. There's a lot going on in this book (Alex being truthful about his homosexuality, both of them dealing with family issues, alcohol and drugs, and of course, horses). Juby manages to pull all of these with relative ease-the book never seems overwhelmed. And, of course, one of the best parts of the book (as with Juby's other books) was the sense of humour-there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.My only qualm was that it took a little while to adjust to the shifting points of view especially since Cleo's sections were in first person and Alex's were in third.Nevertheless, if you're looking for a fun read with a high dose of humour, this is definitely one you'll want to pick up.
—Reader Rabbit
I've had very, very bad experiences with a lot of queer-themed YA lit, and with YA stories about young women with gay friends -- at least one group of characters, either the women or the gay males, end up as caricatures. So I was pretty cautious going into this book. I am pleased to say that I thoroughly underestimated it.The characters, first of all, were lovely -- Juby manages to walk the fine line of over-the-top ~characters~ without ever completely going overboard into cardboard. Alex and Cleo, of course, are wonderfully flawed, likeable characters, but so is much of the rest of the cast: Grace, who's a flake but genuinely loves and does right by her family, and even (especially?) Alex's father, who's trying his best to deal with things he really doesn't want to deal with, and who, moreover, I'm actually rooting for.And Cleo. Oh, Cleo. I can't lie, I adored Cleo. I was deeply concerned, because she's a character who, in the wrong author's hands, could've been absolutely awful and flat-out offensive. Again, I vastly underestimated Juby. Cleo's a rare "poor little rich girl" who manages to be genuinely endearing -- who has an odd little sense of humor that shines when she's confident enough to let it do so, and who genuinely cares for other people but doesn't have any idea how to show that concern in any constructive way, and who learns lessons without Learning Lessons. Relatedly, another example of "things that nine times out of ten don't work for me but that Juby managed to pull off here": the flashback. We know, roughly, the backstory of how Cleo ended up at Stoneleigh, but when we finally get the flashback to Cleo and her father, his reaction to the incident that, for her, started it all, it actually works. More than works, it's downright heartbreaking: we know already that this desperate loneliness and sense of worthlessness was under the surface of her relationship with her parents; Juby has done the work to build that already. But to see how it was made explicit in the flashback is an absolute punch in the gut. That, I think, is what's key, here: this flashback augments, rather than replacing, the work Juby's done with Cleo.On a more cheerful note! There's a lovely dry humor to ANOTHER KIND OF COWBOY -- a humor that I really don't know that I'd have gotten at sixteen or seventeen, but that, ten years later, I absolutely love. It's almost Meg Cabot-ish (and reading the acknowledgments section, Juby got a fair bit of input from Cabot), and fills the PRINCESS DIARIES-shaped hole in my heart the way not even other Meg Cabot books have managed, barreling in and being not just a decent methadone, but a lovely little gem in its own right.That said, what happened to Detroit??? DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING, JUBY, NOW I'M ALL WORRIED. I mean, no, obvs, as Alex says, he's not going to be sold for dog food, but he's SAD, he misses Alex and Turnip and saaaaaaad. :( Also I was kind of irritated by Alex's athletic younger sisters declaring that they were gay, as well, because OBVIOUSLY athletic girls who like martial arts are lesbians (says the gay girl with a black belt in tae kwon do), and had in fact been hoping that Cleo would realize that she was gay herself, but oh well. These were tiny little missteps in the wrapping up of a thoroughly enjoyable book, and this was actually one of the few books where I got it out of the library and promptly headed to Amazon to buy a copy, because I knew I'd want to read it again. There are only a very few books that have ever managed that, so well done, Juby, well done.
—Jules
