Review: The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I TOTALLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALMOST EVERYONE!!!

I am in awe of this book, Annie Wilkins, and even the time period. The early 1950s, when America was still unafraid to trust, loved an adventure, and wasn't glued to electronic devices! TV still wasn't as popular as it would get later in that decade.

This was an adventure, as it says in the synopsis, of a 63-year-old woman, her horse (soon to be two horses), and her dog. When Annie finds out that she is losing her farm and perhaps her life she decided to see the coast. Now mind you, she lives in Maine -already on a coast right? Now she wants to see the West Coast before she dies. She takes what money she can make while sick, buys a horse packs up, and just--goes! No map, no GPS, nothing!

The history I learned in her travels was, well words just can't describe what I felt. I learned things I never knew I needed to know! I was thrilled to find out that she even traveled through my home state and believe me I am going to be doing some research about that.

If you like nearly lost causes, horses, American travel, American trivia, history, adventure, then you simply must read this book. I will say that it drags in some places and it does not have a happy ending for all concerned, but it is still well worth your time.

*ARC supplied by the publisher, the author, and NetGalley. With my humble thanks for being able to read this early-I will be going to buy my own copy and will be reading more by this author.

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SYNOPSIS:"The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion

"The gift Elizabeth Letts has is that she makes you feel you are the one taking this trip. This is a book we can enjoy always but especially need now."--Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv

In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor's advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn't even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.

Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways. Between 1954 and 1956, the three travelers pushed through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by them at terrifying speeds. Annie rode more than four thousand miles, through America's big cities and small towns. Along the way, she met ordinary people and celebrities--from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan) to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers--a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher. In a decade when car ownership nearly tripled, when television's influence was expanding fast, when homeowners began locking their doors, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world. "