A review of Hope Rising

http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/bloggingforbooks/reviews/ranking/8332

My wife received Hope Rising as a birthday present a few years back. I suggested it to my daughter as a good present to give after her mother and I both listened to the author speak about the book on Focus on the Family. When my wife gets into a book she will read it from cover to cover without putting it down. That’s exactly what she did with Hope Rising. I knew I would eventually read it. It took a while for me to get to it, but I eventually did.
 The author, Kim Meeder, and her husband Troy started a non-profit horse ranch designed to take in abused and neglected horses while ministering to children and families dealing with difficult situations. I’m sure the Meeders would agree that the horses do most of the ministering. The book is written as a series of devotional like short stories or memoirs from their ranch. Most of the stories are three to four pages long with the longest being around twelve pages. I found myself tearing up from the first page as she described how a horse brought out a toothless smile from a little boy. The boy, around 5-6, had his teeth knocked out by an abusive father who on occasion would shoot his gun at him.
 As a father and animal lover who believes that God speaks to us through His creation, I found the stories fascinating and heart-warming. When I was finished with the book my wife said, “That book made me very sad and want to start a horse ranch.” I had to agree.
 Meeder, deservedly so, has won awards for her service to her community and for her book, but for me I got a little hung up on the literary style. Every paragraph came equipped with a simile, a metaphor, or both. It was a little much. My other complaint probably stems from the fact that I am a guy, but many of her stories included her personal insight to not only what other people were thinking but what horses and animals were thinking. Much of her insight was probably on target but I found myself questioning, “How does she know what that guy was thinking?” I believe many of the problems men and women have in communicating is that we assume we know what the other person is thinking. This is a hot button issue for me. So when she continued to use that insight as a literary style it became a distraction to me.
 Overall, it was a very good book. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to read it, but it would be best in the hands of animal lovers, and people who rank high on the empathy section of personality tests.