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Review for Pony Confidential, Christina Lynch

Pony Confidential is a unique way to tell the story of a murder mystery. It is a clever, whimsical story about two main characters: the pony and a young woman named Penny, who had owned the pony when she was a child.

An Interesting construction of short alternating chapters tells the story from the pony's perspective and Penny's perspective. The short chapters make the story move along quickly. However, the story does become a little convoluted along the way and there are a lot of contrived coincidences. The animal characters are well drawn, and I found them to be the most interesting characters.

Although the story is written in a whimsical manner and is a fantasy, there are a number of serious themes incorporated into the novel including:
•   Relationship between animals and people
•   The competitive horse world
•   The treatment and mistreatment of animals, particularly horses
•   Family relations and dealing with mental illness issues of a child
•   Love, Friendship, Can people change
•   and the Judicial system and Life in a woman's prison.

As a fantasy, the reader needs to suspend reality when the animals wax on philosophically; when the animals are talking; and when the pony travels all over the country and even enters a building and rides an elevator.

I found the story to be a bit disjointed and the reader needs to piece it together. At times it is hard to follow the timeline of The Pony's story and Penny's story. The timelines were not always parallel. The author may have done this on purpose so the reader would need to piece the mystery together.

The novel includes some very philosophical statements from various characters (animal and human ), and I actually wrote the quotes down because they were worth pondering.

In conclusion, this was not your usual mystery novel. The story is whimsical and a fantasy, yet I found myself turning the pages to find out what happens next and to see if the pony actually solves the mystery. I would not recommend it to my book club because we tend to read more serious books and the writing seemed to be more appropriate for a young adult audience. But it might be a fun book for a young adult book club.

In my opinion, this novel was lacking in depth and felt very much like a Hallmark Christmas movie…too treacly sweet for my taste. The main characters, Pony and Penny, started out their journeys naive, and predictably gained wisdom from their experiences, many of which were so implausible, I found myself rolling my eyes. The book seemed more like YA fiction than any other genre. This book just wasn't for me, though I have to admit, other readers may find it entertaining.

This book was not for me. Told in alternating points of view between Penny and her former pony, I found the book repetitive and cliched. Penny was an unbelievable character, constantly idolizing the portion of her childhood when she owned the pony. She gave very little thought to her current circumstances and situation, including a daughter who needed attention and love. And the choices she made were unrealistic. While the sections narrated by the pony were more interesting, they were full of platitudes. The pony character was used to impart simplistic lessons; so much so that I wondered about the intended audience, as at times it read more like a middle-grade novel.