Molly Gloss' The Hearts of Horses was recommended on some blog or other, and so I requested it from Beaverton Library.

I was the 79th request out of 105.

Apparently its popular.

I can see why it is popular. Things I liked about it were the really interesting details about bronco busting. The way the female bronco buster main character was aware of how she didn't fit into the female gender roles of the day, and the treatment of how the valley folk reacted to rancher families of germanic heritage during the start of WWI.

Things I thought were not quite as well done as I'd like were that the differing threads of the the life stories of the rancher folk weren't given the kind of interweaving treatment I'd like; some stood out more than others and sometimes threads just ended after a tragedy without revisiting that tragedy to find a meaning or lesson in it.

It was cool reading about life at that time in Oregon, so I definitely recommend it. :)