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Summary: A review of Taming the Star Runner By: Jason Dougherty
Review: RecommendationI'd recommend this book for the ages 13 and up because there is a lot of swearing. I would also recommend it because it has a lot of action. For example, he goes to a bar and the manager comes up to him and said, "Where is your ID?" Travis checked his pockets he could not find it he said "I must have left it in the bathroom." The manager threw him out and fired the doorman. So the doorman said, "You're dead meat kid." Another time is when Travis was at a rodeo and Casey did such a good run, that people from the other side where clapping. Travis said, "That is the first time people from the other side where clapping." In conclusion, if you like books with a lot of action, read it.
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Summary: Read the others, starting with RUMBLE FISH
Review: Reviewer Jamie Curran states that this is the only book by S.E. Hinton that she has read, and she may never read another. That would be tragic. While THE OUTSIDERS, HInton's debut novel, is quite powerful, her best book by far is RUMBLE FISH, which is not only a great novel for young adults but a true literary masterpiece. If only I could say the same of TAMING THE STAR RUNNER.
It seems to have been written by a different author. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective: Hinton wrote this book much later than the others, after her own son was a teenager. Too, this is the first time she has used a third-person voice in one of her novels. THE OUTSIDERS owes much of its success to the fact that it sounds like it is told by a kid - it was. Hinton was only 17 when OUTSIDERS was published. (The 14-year-old narrator, Ponyboy, is a boy, but Hinton pulled off the voice flawlessly.) Here, the omniscient third person narrator sounds like an adult, and a mostly disapproving one at that. We read a great deal about the trouble that Travis got into, and we are introduced to two of his friends, who come off as complete dorks, but we are provided little insight into Travis' motivations for doing what he does, or his perceptions of them. Instead we hear about his transgressions from some anonymous adult who seems to like the boy but can't really relate. Much of what Travis does throughout the story is spectacularly stupid. Somehow, in RUMBLE FISH and THE OUTSIDERS, we knew that what the characters were doing was wrong - carrying switchblades and sometimes using them, stealing cars, breaking into stores, getting into fights - and they were things that most of us readers would never do, but we could empathize with the characters who did these things. Here, when Travis' uncle finds out that he has written a novel and it's been accepted for publication, he says, "Kid, you don't strike me as the kind who could write a compound sentence, much less a novel." Well, yeah. That's how he strikes me, too. So what ABOUT the novel that Travis wrote? We're given nothing except that Travis would often spend weekends holed up in his room, writing, while his doofus friends wondered what he was up to. Then Travis tells his editor he dreams about his characters as if they're people he knows, but the reader gets almost no information about them at all. Writing a novel must take a great deal of persistence, intelligence, passion, and creativity, and Travis exhibits none of these through his actions in the story. When the time comes for him to prove his strength and courage, HInton throws in - GUESS WHAT! - a fire. She already did this, and it worked, in THE OUTSIDERS. This time it comes off as a cheap rip-off of a better novel. And one she wrote, yet! One last note: About the time STAR RUNNER was published, there were a number of young adult novels that came out that were based on the same premise: If you just take a wayward lad out of the big, bad city and give him a horse to love and take care of - and make him do some hard manual labor such as only ranchers ever see - he'll turn from a delinquent into a strong, upstanding American who knows the value of hard work, blah, blah, blah. S.L. Rottman, for example, is just one of a slew of authors who wrote a forgetable novel, HERO, just like this. Come on, Susy! You wrote TEX, for crying out loud. You know better. And your readers expect better from you.
Rating:
Summary: Read the others, starting with RUMBLE FISH
Review: Reviewer Jamie Curran states that this is the only book by S.E. Hinton that she has read, and she may never read another. That would be tragic. While THE OUTSIDERS, HInton's debut novel, is quite powerful, her best book by far is RUMBLE FISH, which is not only a great novel for young adults but a true literary masterpiece. If only I could say the same of TAMING THE STAR RUNNER.
It seems to have been written by a different author. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective: Hinton wrote this book much later than the others, after her own son was a teenager. Too, this is the first time she has used a third-person voice in one of her novels. THE OUTSIDERS owes much of its success to the fact that it sounds like it is told by a kid - it was. Hinton was only 17 when OUTSIDERS was published. (The 14-year-old narrator, Ponyboy, is a boy, but Hinton pulled off the voice flawlessly.) Here, the omniscient third person narrator sounds like an adult, and a mostly disapproving one at that. We read a great deal about the trouble that Travis got into, and we are introduced to two of his friends, who come off as complete dorks, but we are provided little insight into Travis' motivations for doing what he does, or his perceptions of them. Instead we hear about his transgressions from some anonymous adult who seems to like the boy but can't really relate. Much of what Travis does throughout the story is spectacularly stupid. Somehow, in RUMBLE FISH and THE OUTSIDERS, we knew that what the characters were doing was wrong - carrying switchblades and sometimes using them, stealing cars, breaking into stores, getting into fights - and they were things that most of us readers would never do, but we could empathize with the characters who did these things. Here, when Travis' uncle finds out that he has written a novel and it's been accepted for publication, he says, "Kid, you don't strike me as the kind who could write a compound sentence, much less a novel." Well, yeah. That's how he strikes me, too. So what ABOUT the novel that Travis wrote? We're given nothing except that Travis would often spend weekends holed up in his room, writing, while his doofus friends wondered what he was up to. Then Travis tells his editor he dreams about his characters as if they're people he knows, but the reader gets almost no information about them at all. Writing a novel must take a great deal of persistence, intelligence, passion, and creativity, and Travis exhibits none of these through his actions in the story. When the time comes for him to prove his strength and courage, HInton throws in - GUESS WHAT! - a fire. She already did this, and it worked, in THE OUTSIDERS. This time it comes off as a cheap rip-off of a better novel. And one she wrote, yet! One last note: About the time STAR RUNNER was published, there were a number of young adult novels that came out that were based on the same premise: If you just take a wayward lad out of the big, bad city and give him a horse to love and take care of - and make him do some hard manual labor such as only ranchers ever see - he'll turn from a delinquent into a strong, upstanding American who knows the value of hard work, blah, blah, blah. S.L. Rottman, for example, is just one of a slew of authors who wrote a forgetable novel, HERO, just like this. Come on, Susy! You wrote TEX, for crying out loud. You know better. And your readers expect better from you.
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Summary: Taming the Star Runner
Review: Taming the Star Runner by S.E. Hinton was a pretty good book I thought. I like the way Travis turns himself around from being a juvenile to a pretty good kid. He messes up a few times, but makes up for his mistakes. My favorite part of the story is when he sneaks into the bar and ends up getting into a fight. I thought the end was a bummer because of what happens to the Star Runner. Altogether I thought Taming the Star Runner is a pretty good book. I would probably suggest that if you haven't read this book yet, you should!
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Summary: Travis the main character
Review: Taming the star runner is about a boy that goes to jail for attemted murder for trying to kill his step father because he saw him throwing his books and writings in the fire. Once he got out of jail he went to live with his uncle to help around the ranch and to stay from stand the step father, but he is have a hard time with making friends at his new school.
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Summary: Taming the Star Runner
Review: Taming the Star runner is about Travis, A sixteen year old boy who is sent to his uncles farm after trying the kill his stepfather. There he finds that he is'nt noticed at school for the first time in his life. Travis is hired by casey as a stable hand were he meets a horse named star runner. Casey is trying to tame him, But Star Runner is like Travis, not ment to be tamed. I did't fully understand the ending of the book and it was a bit too long, but other than that the book was very good.
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Summary: Taming the Star Runner review
Review: Taming the Star Runner sounds like a book that only girls would pick out and read. I gurantee if a boy walked through the library and picked up the book and read the title he would put it back down. He would be missing out because it is a great book. The main character Travis is exactlly like a teenager today; Likes girls and has problems with his parents. Travis moved to his Uncles house to get away from his parents. He had written a book about his life and how much he hated his step father. He had sent it in to a book publishing company to see if they would publish it. They were interested in publishing it and thought it would be a great book for teenagers. Travis thought he would get his 15 minutes of fame because all he had to do was get his parents to sign it. That is the hard part. Travis's mother said she wouldn't sign it if it said anything bad about her husband( Travis's step dad.)
This book is filled with other conflicts that teenagers go through. I would recommend this book to anyone over 11 years old. They have to be older than 11 because it's at a high reading level. The reason this book didn't get 5 stars is because it was slow at points. It would be all exciting and then it would be slow for 3 chapters or so. Overall it was a great book to read. Sorry S.E. Hinton it wasn't a 5 star book, although the Outsiders was.
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Summary: This book is missing something
Review: Taming the Star Runner tells the story of a teenager who suffers many family problems and doesn't get along too well with some people. This teenager is Travis, who after attempting to murder his step-father, goes to live with his uncle in Oklahoma to stay out of trouble. Travis goes through a whole lot of problems at his uncle's house. His teachers hate him and he doesn't find any friends. Some of Travis's problems were caused by his mother's decisions back home. Travis's mother was a lady with no personality. She let Stan, Travis's step father, make all the decisions and abuse her. Travis's anger from his mother's decisions almost got him thrown out from his uncle's house. Despite Travis's attitude, he is an excellent writer. He loves reading and surprises people when he talks about books. The first impression that other people have of Travis is not a very good one but after everyone gets to know him they find out he is a really good person. The book is fairly short and very easy to read. It was too fast paced for me leaving a few very important incidents just hanging in the air. A perfect example of this is when Travis's friend, Joe, gets in deep trouble and comes to Travis to ask for help. The book narrates this event really quickly and barely recalls later in the book. I also don't like the end of the book. I'm not so sure of how Travis is feeling. I also think that the author doesn't leave very clear what happened to Casey's horse, the Star Runner after an incident near the end. This book seemed too empty for me but if you like simple books then go ahead and read this one.
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Summary: Taming the Star Runner
Review: Taming the star runner was a great book it was about this young teen who was geting in trouble with the law to much so his mom sent him to his uncle's. He emediatly did not fit in to much with his new fangled city ways so he had to ajust to the new hick population. He soon became very fimiler with this new world of isolation so he had to go find something to do with his self. Eventually he found some teens his age but was quickly asumed to be an city boy know it all, and to come crawling back to get their attention and there friend ship. Soon he found his pasion for horses and feel in love with a hick horse rider (a girl) who he had to win over with his boyish charm. He also feel in love with a horse who was named The Star Runner. Who was said to be in untameable by man but only by god himself. But in the end the star runner was to be tamed by the lovely horse rider girl who also tamed the untamable Nick.
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Summary: It's fascinating and covers important stages of adolescence.
Review: Taming the Star Runner This novel is fascinating and covers important stages of adolescence. The main character Travis, is a traditional cool gay. Part of his problems begin with the differences between his step-father, Stan, and himself. Travis is separated from his mom and friends, when he is sent to live with his uncle. When Travis arrives to uncle's Ken ranch, who is fighting for his son's (Chris) custody with Teresa (ex-wife), the story truly begins. He finds out that his new schoolmates don't like his tough city ways. Yet he is able to find a friend on the ranch, Casey. She is a bit older and runs a riding school at the ranch. She is brave enough to tame Star Runner, her dangerous horse. Back at his old home he had sent one novel he had written to New York. However, nobody knew this. He receives the answering letter which talks really well about his novel. He has big illusions of having his novel published. He is not 18 and this means his mom and Stan will take care of his book. Most books are the same for me, however, this novel was really a pleasure to read. Even though you are not going crazy to know what? will happen next, it flows easily and is fun. Many young adults could feel identify and find similarities with some of their problems in this story. I like the fact that it has an entertaining plot and a well thought out theme.
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