A review by chamomiledaydreams
Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan

2.0

I've had this book sitting in my room since I bought it with a group of friends at a Scholastic book fair in elementary school. I could never get through it when I was younger and always stopped before the 25% mark. Rereading it this past week, I'm still uncomfortable, but for different reasons. I dislike the chapters from the horse's point of view, because they feel so bodily and gross - like the scene at the beginning of Spirit, where his mother is giving birth, and you just stare at the screen feeling awkward, because you're in a room full of people, and they must feel weird about this, too, right?? I also feel strange returning to a genre that my eight-year-old self would have loved but about which my twenty-two-year-old self feels unenthusiastic and more than a little self-conscious. Still, the story isn't bad! I like the human characters a lot, especially how each person has a very unique voice and dialogue style. I was genuinely interested in learning more about the protagonist, and I am satisfied now that I've read the story from cover-to-cover.