Tuesday, February 28, 2012

My Favorite Mistake ~ Georgina Bloomberg & Catherine Hapka review

My Favorite Mistake: An A Circuit Novel (#2)
Bloomsbury USA Children's
February 28, 2012
256 pages
add to Goodreads/buy on Amazon/or Book Depository

My Favorite Mistake co-authored by Georgina Bloomberg and Catherine Hapka, is the sequel to last year's The A Circuit.

Kate, Tommi and Zara are still very much involved in the horse world as riders on the A Circuit. Tommi has bought Legs, the horse she hopes to train and sell for a profit to prove to her billionaire father that she can make horses a true career, not just a hobby. Kate is working harder than ever at the barn to be able to ride without a rich father (or mother) to pay her way. Zara, the wild daughter of a music celebrity, seems to finally be taking her riding seriously.

What will happen when Tommi meets a new guy who convinces her to skip a horse show to come to his house party in the Hamptons instead? Is Kate working a little too hard? Can she keep up a relationship with Fritz, her riding and all that she thinks she needs to do around the barn? And what of Zara? Can she continue to be dedicated to riding when her dad goes out of town and she gets a "nanny" who may be even more of a party girl than Zara?

You'll have to read My Favorite Mistake to find out!


I really enjoyed My Favorite Mistake. The few things about The A Circuit that kept me from really loving it - the fact that so many characters were touched on but readers never really got to know them and there seemed (at least in memory) to be a lot of drinking - were different in this second book. This one really focused on Kate, Tommi and Zara with Kate and Tommi seeming to be the main focus.

We were able to really get to know the characters much better than in the first book and it helped both the story and my enjoyment of it. The horses and the shows are definitely still there and a very big aspect of the novel (though I felt as if some of the terminology may have been cut back just a bit) so readers looking for that need not worry. We do get to see the more personal side of the shows, though. How Kate works to get things together for the different riders, what clothes are needed, how it affects their personal lives (being committed to the shows for x number of days that week) those sorts of things.

While this book was a bit more tame (in terms of some of their extracurricular activities and their legality), it does still have a bit of a Gossip Girl meets the horse world feel to it - which I suppose is only natural given the characters ages, locale and wealth.

This time, however, the book is much stronger than The A Circuit and I urge you to give it a try even if you were unsure after reading the first in this series.

Rating: 8/10



review part of Bloomsbury's Blog Tours - book received from publisher, thank you :)

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