The Scorpio Races

by Maggie Stiefvater

A stunning new novel from the bestselling author of SHIVER, LINGER AND FOREVER. Stay alive, stay astride, stay out of the water...Every November, the Scorpio Races are run beneath the chalk cliffs of Skarmouth. Thousands gather to watch the horses and the sea that washes the blood from the sand. The mounts are capaill uisce: savage water horses. There are no horses more beautiful, more fearless, more deadly. To race them can be suicide but the danger is irresistible. Sean Kendrick knows the dangers of the capaill uisce. With one foot in the ocean and one on land, he is the only man on the island capable of taming the beasts. He races to prove something both to himself and to the horses. Puck Connolly enters the races to save her family. But the horse she rides is an ordinary little mare, just as Puck is an ordinary girl. When Sean sees Puck on the beach he doesn't think she belongs. He doesn't realize his fate will become entwined in hers. They both enter the Races hoping to change their lives. But first they'll have to survive.

• ISBN10: 0606315012
• ISBN13: 9780606315012
• Publish Date: 1 April 2013 (first published 1 October 2011)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 April 2021
• Imprint: Turtleback Books
• Edition: Bound for Schools & Libraries ed.
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 5 Stars

This was pure f*cking brilliance. Seriously. OHMYGOD...

Stiefvater is a MASTER of storytelling.

*wipes away tears*

100% recommend! Even if you feel like it won't be your thing... I can't even explain how incredible the world building, storyline, & character development... the absolutely DISTINCTIVE voices of each of the characters...

PURE BEAUTY! INCREDIBLE! Ahhhhh!

Maggie Steifvater is a Goddess of the written word. FACT.

[Alina]

I had this one on my list for a while, but I somehow never got around to sit with it, even though it starts off with a bang and the first phrase had me hooked.
My reluctance to read it must have been pure serenedipity: here I was, on Easter Island, facing the Pacific. Free horses roaming the green green fields, waves crashing behind them in an awe-inspiring display. And I just knew, this is where I am reading "The Scorpio Races", on this isolated, mysterious little world a little to the left of the known universe, surrounded by craggy rocks and wild horses and unexplained moais. And, boy, was I right!
The atmospheric writing made me fall in love with the rough life of Thisby and I felt each line worming its way under my skin, like a soul tattoo of harsh black lines. This book has sharp angles and it will cut you, then kiss you where it hurt you.

The story will stay with me, like a half-remembered sea song, salt on my lips, eyes in the forever stretching horizon, ears on the rhythmic melody of wild horses running on the beach.

Thank you, Maggie Stiefvater, for giving us this one!

[alisoninbookland]

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Yeah, 'animal' books really aren't my thing. The narrators on the audio were great though.

[Angie]

The Scorpio Races was a weird one for me. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it never fully grabbed me. Skarmouth is a kind of magical and deadly place. Every October, the fearsome waterhorses emerge from the sea, and it's up to the islanders to catch, tame, and train them for the upcoming Scorpio Races on November 1. Sean has won four out of the past six years, and he hopes to win again to finally own his own horse. For Puck, it's nearly a matter of life or death. She's going to lose her home and her oldest brother if she doesn't win her first race.

I think most of why The Scorpio Races didn't wow me was the characters. I liked them, but they were kind of boring. Sean is the awesome waterhorse whisperer, so I expected from the beginning that nothing would happen to him. He has this way with these ferocious beasts, so I was never worried. As for Puck, she's just kind of there. I admired her for sticking with her decision to not only enter the race, but to ride her own regular horse. But I also expected from the beginning that she'd have this amazing triumph and overcome all of the odds against her. There was nothing really special about her, other than being the first girl to the enter the race. I guess I just wanted more out of both of them. Surprise me!

The last quarter or so of The Scorpio Races was great. There's plenty of excitement as the race draws nearer and the stakes become even higher. Obviously, Puck and Sean can't both win, and they both need to for different reasons. There's also someone out there who will do anything to make sure that neither of them win. I had already made up my mind on who I thought would take the victory, but I wasn't sure how they'd get there, so the race did keep me on my toes. I just wish the earlier parts of the book had been as engaging, or not nearly as drawn out.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[ross91]

This was utterly beautiful.

[Stephanie]

I was not expecting all these emotions about horses, Maggie Stiefvater. How dare you. How dare you make me cry.

[Joséphine]

Audiobook rating: 2.5 stars
Book rating: 2 stars

Initial thoughts: It took me nearly an hour to figure out the best way to describe how I feel about The Scorpio Races. Indifference is the term. The words strung together were beautiful, no doubt. Writing definitely is Maggie Stiefvater's strong suit. I could taste the salt water on my lips, the contours of the water horses formed silhouettes in my mind. I heard the rush of the sea crashing into the cliffs. Yet I found myself not caring much about the book itself.

Had it not been for the audiobook narrators, I might have found Puck and Sean rather indistinguishable. Their thoughts mirrored each other's too much to create the depth of distinct characters. The plot was so long drawn, that marking significant events on a plot line would only require a single stroke at the point of the actual race. Perhaps a dot to mark the last day(s) leading up to it. The rest of the time I couldn't find it in me to care an ounce for Puck or Sean. Yes, their circumstances were tough and all and there were sinister undertones but none of these came across as pressing issues beyond Puck's moping around.

It's not wonder that I'm battling with myself about The Scorpio Races, then. I fell in love with the writing and in part the setting too but I didn't care about what was being told.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

5 ★ Audiobook⎮This book is a slow burn. I can't recall a story that has ever touched my soul quite like this one. This story managed to get under my skin in the most hauntingly pleasant sort of way. Some may be bothered by its plodding pace, but to me it was the good kind of slow. The peaceful sort of slow, like a Sunday drive. So much of this story is devoted to character development that I feel like I know them. Fondness for the characters almost creeps up on you, even with the minor characters. The plot is not unnecessarily impeded by romance (there isn't even a hint of it for most of the book). And the romance that does exist is the furthest thing from insta-love or the juvenile type of romance usually seen in YA stories. I'm not even sure I would classify this as YA. It's such a mature story and a far cry from Shiver. I can't believe this was even written by the same author as Shiver. This is the work by which Maggie Stiefvater should be judged. Her writing here is poetic. This book truly is an experience. There's no other way to describe it.

Narration review: The audiobook narrators ( Steve West & Fiona Hardingham) did an incredible job of conveying more through their narration than was present in the author's work. They excelled at creating an atmosphere for the story that whisks the listener away to Thisby. I get chills just thinking about it. ♣︎

[Amber]

I’m about to upset so many people. Ha. Hahaha. Don’t kill me.

I was told by a once trusted friend and co-blogger that I would enjoy The Scorpio Races the most out of all of Stiefvater’s books. I had been commenting on how The Raven Cycle seems a little too try hard quirky with not enough plot, especially after Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and Tatum said I would probably like The Scorpio Races more if I’m not into quirky reads. WELL YOU WERE WRONG WEREN’T YOU TATUM.

My main issue with The Scorpio Races is that I was bored throughout. I tried really hard to get into it but by page 50 I was so exhausted by it because, like with Shiver, it was slow going. Terribly slow going. To the point that I couldn’t tell what the plot was meant to be, because I THOUGHT it was about horse racing turned deadly, but most of it was a girl trying to talk to this guy who is a champion horse racer. Or something.

It’s a very quiet plot, which was not what I expected from a book about murderous water horses. So that was strike one.

Strike two was that I couldn’t connect with any of the characters in the slightest. Puck and Sean sounded exactly the same on the page, and I had trouble telling them apart when I was in the middle of chapters. Especially since there were no distinctive plot points and so I had no idea who was doing what.

Another thing I have noticed is that Maggie Stiefvater’s books (those that I’ve read so far) feature very few significant female characters in comparison to the amount of significant males. Her books seem to be overrun with boys, and The Scorpio Races is no exception. I’m not going to lie, now that I’ve read more of Stiefvater’s books, this is starting to get on my nerves. Where are my awesome female friendships?! Or awesome female villains.

I started skimming The Scorpio Races at about the halfway point because it was sending me to sleep. I am so incredibly disappointed in this book, and I have been BETRAYED by my co-blogger, so this wasn’t a fun experience at all. Maybe it’ll get more entertaining when the mob comes to burn my house down for my blasphemy .

[paperbackjedi]

Puck Connolly would do anything for her family. When they fall on hard times and her older brother plans to peace out and leave her and her little brother high and dry, she decides to take a crazy risk and enter The Scorpio Races with her family horse, Dove. She’ll be riding against the dangerous, but far superior water horses that everyone else rides. She’s the first girl to enter and the first person to do so using an ordinary horse, making her a target. Sean Kendrick watched his father die in The Scorpio Races, but he still enters every year and wins almost all the time. His intense relationship with his own water horse and the ocean itself makes him an outcast on the island. Told from altering perspectives, Puck and Sean fight for the things they love the most– maybe even at the cost of their lives.

The Scorpio Races is pure magic. It’s such an interesting premise and even though the world is just one small island, it’s crafted into an epic setting for the story. Sporting a small cast of critical characters, it paints an intimate picture of each person found within the pages. Both Sean and Puck are excellently rendered protagonists, but detail is spent on many of the island’s inhabitants and their own histories and personal connection to the races. I also particularly enjoyed Puck’s younger brother Finn as a character. The best thing about this book is by far the prose and the fact that this is not a love story, it’s a story about the ties that bind and how you best protect them. AND MAGIC HORSE RACING. Because that’s just awesome. I will warn you that the language is oddly formal, but it works well with the delivery of the story and makes sense within the world-building.

The plot itself moved at the perfect pace– nothing happened too slowly and when there wasn’t much action, there was stunning character development and inside looks at the lives and personalities of Thisby’s population. Stiefvater plays close attention to detail, describing events and personalities with grace and sophistication. Particularly notable, was her description of the water horses and horse riding in general. You can tell how much she researched in order to write this book and it shows in how well she is able to relay the racing aspects of the story. And while you are definitely on the edge of your seat when the action happens, you’ll most likely be tingling from the anticipation of the event and how it affects the characters and their relationships rather than the sporting aspect.

Truly, the heart of this novel is the relationships– and I mean all of them: the relationships between family, between a boy and a girl holding their own, between a human and a wild animal, and between a town and its population. There is so much love in this novel that it overflows in every page and it’s not simple, feel good, instant, and shallow love. It’s complicated, complex, and bone deep. It’s in every choice and action they make. If you’re looking for banter and bickering and a typical boy meets girl, you’ll be disappointed and so will I because you’ll have missed the point and, honest to blog, a hell of a story.