Horse Girls Audiobook By Halimah Marcus cover art

Horse Girls

Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Horse Girls

By: Halimah Marcus
Narrated by: Amanda Dolan, Jolene Kim, Almarie Guerra, Dahlia Salem, MW Cartozian Wilson, Piper Goodeve, Christine Tawfik, Samantha Quan, Eileen Stevens, Imani Parks, Marisha Tapera, Jaime Lamchick, Charley Flyte, Carolina Hoyos, Roxana Ortega
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.29

Buy for $24.29

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A compelling and provocative essay collection that smashes stereotypes and redefines the meaning of the term "horse girl," broadening it for women of all cultural backgrounds.

As a child, horses consumed Halimah Marcus' imagination. When she wasn't around horses she was pretending to be one, cantering on two legs, hands poised to hold invisible reigns. To her classmates, girls like Halimah were known as "horse girls," weird and overzealous, absent from the social worlds of their peers.

Decades later, when memes about "horse girl energy" began appearing across social media, Halimah reluctantly recognized herself. The jokes imagine girls as blinkered as carriage ponies, oblivious to the mockery behind their backs. The stereotypical horse girl is also white, thin, rich, and straight, a daughter of privilege. Yet so many riders don't fit this narrow, damaging ideal, and relate to horses in profound ways that include ambivalence and regret, as well as unbridled passion and devotion.

Featuring some of the most striking voices in contemporary literature—including Carmen Maria Machado, Pulitzer-prize winner Jane Smiley, T Kira Madden, Maggie Shipstead, and Courtney Maum—Horse Girls reframes the iconic bond between girls and horses with the complexity and nuance it deserves. And it showcases powerful emerging voices like Braudie Blais-Billie, on the connection between her Seminole and Quebecois heritage; Sarah Enelow-Snyder, on growing up as a Black barrel racer in central Texas; and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, on the colonialist influence on horse culture in Pakistan.

By turns thought-provoking and personal, Horse Girls reclaims its titular stereotype to ask bold questions about autonomy and desire, privilege and ambition, identity and freedom, and the competing forces of domestication and wildness.

©2021 Halimah Marcus (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers
Gender Studies Literature & Fiction Women Funny
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Horse Girls

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing.

I was expecting a memoir— instead It was a collection of essays that had little to do with what horses themselves bring to a girl’s/ woman’s life. In most of the essays, horses are somewhat tangential—simply stand-ins for whatever coming of age issues the writers faced as they matured.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Ugh. Sorry.

Returned this after skipping around and 40 minutes - and I tried. Too many overly dramatic narrators a slog to get through. Ironically, I listen to audiobooks while cleaning stalls and taking care of a barn as it makes the time pass and if on speaker, the horses get a story too :) This was not what I'd hoped for and while I didn't watch Saddle Club or any overly romantic "horsey movies" - this is the book version I think. I'll stick with Dick Francis mysteries for accurate equine books.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!