What readers think of Half Broke Horses, plus links to write your own review.

I read the entirety of the book, it was interesting enough to keep my attention and I'm not here to complain about the manner in which it was written, for all intents and purposes it was well written and very engaging, loved it up until the part where she herself becomes a parent. I did not appreciate (true or not) the admission to happily slapping and beating a 9 year old into submission (no one should ever enjoy hurting a child), nor the many accounts of her happily beating other children (and thinking this made her a good teacher) including beating her own daughter with a belt "as something dark came over her," and she "realized she had taken it too far." And various other related parenting passages of her taking something way too far, mostly to save face. To be fair, her temper made her an inefficient teacher and mother, it's a parenting failure, not a success story. In the 1940's her actions may not have carried as much weight, but in this day in age, it would most certainly have been abusive.
I appreciate honesty, but I do think authors have to be careful about portraying harmful parenting in a positive light. But I loved that she tried to teach Mormon girls that they had no obligation to marry young, and that they could go on to become anything their heart desired if they were brave enough to pursue it. I would also love to read a book about the main characters daughter Rosemary. I loved her, she was treated harshly, and instead of being a victim, she "taught" her mother that she wouldn't be brutalized into submission, and that all of the pain her mother put her through just made her more determined to do exactly the opposite of what she wanted.