The Eighty-Dollar Champion: A Book Review

The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've made another compromise on rating: 4 stars for the story, 2 stars for how it was written here = 3 stars. The tale of how a down-and-out duo rise to become the cream of the crop in show jumping is both amazing and inspirational; however, I was expecting more story. The tale was embellished with the history of the era-- Cold War--, the class differences still evident in the show jumping arena and the history of show jumping. Some of that embellishment was necessary to help place the story in a solid setting. But, there were often whole chapters filled with the above that did not advance the plot of the story at all. Also, I found that the author relied on the same phrases over and over. There was one place that an entire paragraph or two was repeated again with only minor changes to the wording in the same chapter. If you can't fill up a whole book with the story, then maybe you don't have a story? Just a thought. Wish the above mentioned topics were better intermingled with the story. The tale itself was fantastic! Who doesn't love a rags-to-riches story. Overall: meh.


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