A Rude Awakening

Young and innocent Vivienne, a small town girl, who loves horses is given a scholarship to study and ride at an Elite Academy far from home. Betrayal, mean girls, and naughty boys all take part in this dramatic murder mystery. 

The relationship between a horse and their rider is an unexplainable. The feeling of harmony between the two is as intense as any human relationship. Silent Harmony, a young adult fiction novel, written by Michele Scott, tells the story of a unique relationship between a horse and very talented rider. Main character, Vivienne Taylor is accepted with a full scholarship into an elite equestrian academy on the coast. Vivienne has been given a gift of extrasensory perception, the ability to communicate telepathically with all horses. Vivienne has psychic abilities and understands how the horse is feeling and even thinking. After arriving and meeting the horse Harmony, her new mount, Vivienne oddly is unable to read Harmony’s thoughts. She feels uneasy as she has been able to communicate with every horse she has come across. Vivienne knows that there is something wrong, as the days pass by with no form of communication coming from Harmony. Death is lurking, and who and why are questions at the top of Vivienne’s clairvoyant mind.

I found this novel to be a thriller with all of the excitement in every page. I expected a run of the mill, typical girl loves her beautifully perfect horse but what i found was a challenging and exciting murder mystery. The relationship between the horse and the rider proved to be very true and believable to me. For example she was bucked off her horse which hasn't happened since she was seven on a pony because of her strong connection with horses, “Tristan hands me the reins. “You okay?” he asks” (78). Vivienne is very relatable and has an inspiring motivation coming from a humble background with an Olympic dream. I have connected to Vivienne because I too share the same long term goal. Her drive and determination has been proven throughout the book to make her successful thru her progressive riding career. The author cleverly used excellent imagery and character development. The author built the story to climax in the most exciting way.

The way that the teens are portrayed in Silent Harmony stand true to how teens act today throughout the novel, for example, “Take your tired old mean girls thing and go somewhere else” (103). The students at Fairmont Equestrian Academy take things for granted and  have high expectations with the lifestyle that they are given. In Danville, the youth is very fortunate to have large estates, new cars, play on elite sports teams and have high expectations for grades. In high school bullying and jealousy do occur often. In the book Silent Harmony and reality, both show examples of social classes in young adults.  

I feel that the author did a wonderful job with how she explained horse related inferences and her research was spot on. I felt so engaged in this book always wanting to read more and more. Most of the chapters are from Vivienne’s point of view in the first person although a few chapters were in the third person from other characters. Which made the story a bit challenging to follow as to who was speaking their story.

Aside from the horse aspect, Vivienne struggles to fit in being the new, small town scholarship girl. Not only does she have to deal with not being able to communicate with horse for the first time but she also deals with the people around her like the privileged boys and girls who look down to her. But they are all just jealous inside so they act pompous towards Vivienne. While being at a prep school with a well known riding program she struggles with homesickness, school’s wealthy drama queens and kings, rough competition in the sport of three-day-eventing. Vivienne soon comes to find out that her new horse Harmony belonged to the school’s vet, who recently died in an accident, feels that the horse’s peculiar behavior may be from witnessing this accident killing the vet. As Vivienne and Harmony start to form a bond, Vivienne realizes that the vet’s death was not at all an accident but a calculated murder. Which leads to them tracking down the killer of the schools vet .

I am truly excited to read the next book in this series. I actually had an opportunity to meet and come to know the author. The picture I have posted to this entry was commissioned by her personal photographer and may possibly be used in her next book. Madeleine Moore as Vivienne Taylor!

Scott, Michele. Silent Harmony. Las Vegas, NV: Skyscape, 2013. Print.

What stood out to me the most in the chapter Three The Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall For Tall, Dark, and Handsome Men by Malcolm Gladwell, was how people could be so easy to make assumptions by physical appearances. First impressions definitely play a major role in how one might view another person. The takeaway in this passage is to not be easy to judge others by their appearances because appearances can be very deceiving for example in the chapter how Warren Harding looked like a confident powerful leader but really he was not dependable and went down in history as one of the worst presidents in American history. This chapter can be brought into our discussion because even though we try not to base our opinions on looks but our brain automatically basis things on outward appearances, height, color of skin, athletic build, male vs. female. We should look to character traits rather that looks such as responsibility, loyalty, trust worthy, positive mental attitude, and compassion. I took the race test and my results were little to no automatic preference between African American children and European American children. I feel that my results came true to what I think that I am not a very bias person especially between races. Therefore, I was not surprised with my results because I feel that we are all created equally no matter what color of skin. I think being brought up in California we are more exposed to different races being extremely successful. We have a more open attitude  even between sexes so many mothers are just as successful as their husbands. When it comes to youth and different races I think music really shapes our attitudes towards young black men. The lyrics to songs are pretty sketchy vs someone like Taylor Swift who talk about every girls thoughts. At the end of the day we (Danville Youth) are smart enough to know much of the music though is really provocative so that typical white suburban kids like us will buy their music. The interesting thing for example Drake one of the most successful singers/rappers was brought up very similar to most of us, pretty affluent. I think we are headed towards a society that is more and more accepting and I think that is a good thing.