The story is good, but sometimes difficult to follow due to all the characters (some of whom are the same person, but you don't know that at first).

While the narrator of this book, 12-year-old Alice, is by turns naive and wise beyond her years, this book is an interesting and eye-opening look at the hard life of a working show horse farm.
Alice is familiar with adults who leave her; her teenaged sister runs away and leaves her with a mother who is emotionally and physically shut up in her bedroom and a father only interested in hard work and the business of capturing the glory and money a show horse can bring.
The only adult in her life that she can talk with openly is a male teacher who takes her calls at all hours of the night. Their relationship is based on Alice's lies about who she is and the teacher's deep distress over the loss of a love.
The hardest parts of this book are the passages about the horses and how they are forced to live. The cruelty is palpable, staying with you even after the book is finished.
Overall, this is a good first novel, but lacks the morsel of hope necessary to balance the bleakness of Alice's life.