The rest of the story passes with scenes in hotel rooms, stables, schooling rings. Abuse and drugs, over and over again.. it's a cycle that never ends, and the author wants you to experience this cycle.. and how it feels to be trapped within it. An out lesbian, [6] her works explore aspects of American culture, such as the connections between power, drugs, sex, violence, love and justice. [3] The abuse of the riders is mirrored by the abuse of the horses, which gets more upsetting until the climax when everything comes to a head, and probably the last bit of comfort for the main characters gets destroyed.

Although the book is powerfully honest and brutal I had problems more with the writing and character development. I suppose it just takes time to get used to how Heather Lewis wrote her novels. I admire the way she laid Lee's emotions and entire life bare for the reader to witness. It's just at the end of the book I didn't really feel like I knew Lee at all. And the entire world of show horses is completely unknown to me. I understand Lewis knew about it well and she certainly was able to show that through her words. I just wasn't able to picture any of the scenes in my head that contained the horses, which was a important thing to Lee.

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But tho’ the sex in House Rules is not all that erotic, this book excels other novels about young athletes in the erotics of extreme competition. You can almost feel you’re in the saddle with Lee & smell the horse lather. Amber Dermont hadn’t a clue how to do that with dingy sailing in The Starboard Sea. Even Yonahloosee Riding Camp - tho’ belonging to a higher level of literature - doesn’t take you over the jumps with Thea Atwell as Heather Lewis lets you ride with Lee. The only thing I’ve read recently that matches this in sheer intensity is the chapter in Dare Me where the Sutton Grove cheer squad elevate Beth Cassidy for what is expected to be the culminating 2-2-1. (Beth, we recall, was also an equestrienne as well as a cheer captain.) Heather Lewis was born in Bedford, New York and attended Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of three published novels. The first, House Rules (1994), details the experiences of a fifteen year old girl working as a show rider of horses-an experience the author herself had in her teenage years. Lewis's second novel, The Second Suspect (1998), follows the struggles of a female police investigator trying to prove the guilt of a powerful and influential businessman responsible for the rape and murder of several young women. The third, posthumously published novel, Notice (2004), describes the experiences of a young prostitute, Nina and her involvement with a sadist and his wife. Her works explore aspects of American culture, such as the connections between power, drugs, sex, violence, love and justice. Through these themes, Heather Lewis draws the reader into questioning the nature of love and relationships, the character of human nature or motivation and, most challengingly, the boundary between pleasure and pain. Significantly, the novels present strong, yet vulnerable female characters offering an alternative to more typical American narrative constructions driven by male protagonists within male-dominated scenes.

urn:lcp:houserules0000lewi:lcpdf:5051e768-df1d-4539-9ce6-c961d6209890 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier houserules0000lewi Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t4tj8gm0r Invoice 1652 Isbn 0749395842 I do wish we knew more about the main character: How did she start riding and how she got into the show scene, because the level she is showing is not an easy place to be. You need money—even as a catch rider, you need money and you need to be good enough to have a name that people want you showing their horses. Affiliation with a barn sure, but you need to win, and win a lot. So, right there, the level of this character’s skill is a bit frustrating, because as the writer does take you through moments of riding at the shows, they are of someone who is skilled.

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Lee always rode for the Cheslers, an old-money family who specializes in hunters. However, it's evident that Lee has always harbored a crush on Tory Markham, a woman who rides for the fast and dangerous pair, Carl and Linda Rusker. Lee finds the world of show-jumping more interesting than the hunters, giving readers impressions that hunter-jumping is stagnant even if there is a steady income. Rumors circulate about the Ruskers doping their horses, but Lee finds out there's more to it than just business. A relationship begins between Tory and Lee after she signs on with the Ruskers, yet it is unhealthy and painfully ruthless. Linda, who is also Tory's ex-lover, becomes involved with Lee later on and subjects her to even more sadistic treatment. The sex is always rough and unsexy in this book, but it's visceral. Very raw and unflinching. Clearly, though, true affection and love are more painful to Lee than the fisting that Tory and Linda subject her to. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-09-27 03:04:11 Boxid IA151001 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Donor Besides House Rules, Heather Lewis left behind two more novels; no horses, but like in House Rules very violent sexual episodes and a lot of drugs. Both offer as principal characters a wealthy couple who are addicted to sexually abusing teen-aged prostitutes. The Second Suspect is an apparent police procedural investigating the death of one of these girls. The other novel, Notice– published only after the author’s suicide – is a 1st person account by a teenaged prostitute who specializes in servicing businessmen commuters @ a suburban railway station car park. The two books are obviously closely related & artistically it makes sense to connect them. Not exactly spoilers in this review, but general outline of the plot (so you might want to avoid it!)

Next, we have a lot of unanswered questions about some main characters: Carl is alleged to be married, but we never hear of the wife, any history of the wife, other than 2 references. Even when the main character, Lee, stays with them in between shows, the wife is never even alluded to, but many other characters have their stories and history laid out up front. Confusing. I'd never read a book authored by someone who was once a very close friend. Add to that that I've only recently found out she became an author. And that she took her own life, before I made this discovery. I think the part I find troublesome is the graphic sex—which is not about passion, but about pain. I understand why this was introduced, but after awhile, it does get old—and I would feel the same about heterosexual sex. To me, I always found sex in a book to be a filler when someone’s main story wasn’t strong enough. In this story, yes, it has purpose, but the extensive way it’s described over and over again, you sort of start to say ‘ok, is this it?’ In the beginning, it’s purpose was highlighted, but as we progress in the story, it just starts to work like a broken record. Obviously these incidents impacted on the writer, who wrote this obviously from experience. But, I feel it was to hide a greater feeling and emotion and story. Which is a shame. My experience with hunters & jumpers is entirely second hand. My world was sailing; but both riding and yachting satisfy some of our highest aspirations, demanding skill, intense competitiveness, dedication, physical endurance, & courage in the face of danger. In both we adapt to the demands of beautiful, unpredictable, & often expensive, @ the top echelon extremely expensive indeed, partners - horses or yachts. Which makes riding and sailing traditional pursuits for the rich. But by no means exclusively. Horses need riders & yachts need crew & both require a lot of maintenance & there are many young people in particular who would offer their whole lives to riding or to sailing - whose entire net wealth fits into a duffle bag. If that choice of life ever appealed when you were young (I’m gazing wistfully @ my old yellow seabag), you’ll find you share a lot with Lee.Her writing style encompasses everything I love and revere in a writer - a simple, heartfelt honesty that is the hardest thing to achieve. I know about drugs: with what they were using, the ONLY way was down, and fast (ie: dead). It didn’t make sense that Linda let the girls use so much; she could have been FAR more controlling with it—and it seems like she would have been. With opiate addiction comes withdrawal—hand-in-hand: we didn’t see much of that. Lccn 93025614 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL1416092M Openlibrary_edition The book also shows us a network of adults who are too interested in passing judgement and making money to care about the treatment of the horses and riders, and women’s reputations take a much bigger hit than their male peers who are doing just as much (usually more) depraved stuff. This all adds up to a perfect storm for poor Lee to get trapped in an unsafe dynamic, even without the copious drugs she’s being given.

Lee appears as a character who is honest and loyal, but can't get herself out of situations that will hurt her. It seems as if she doesn't have the strength or ability, but maybe it's because the pain helps numb everything in the end. She's a character who's very human and I found her relatable, despite us having little in common. I admire Lee. Sadly she only believes what happens to the horses is wrong, and could not understand the same was happening to her until the very end. It's a really dark, lonely sort of book. I don't know how to explain what I mean. It just left me sort of lost- but her writing was really good. The fact that nobody has any deeper biographical information from her.. It's like she's faded away from history. It took me a long time to find out what I know about her, from bits and pieces. Nobody else seems to think about her anymore. urn:oclc:37246883 Scandate 20111208100831 Scanner scribe5.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) Sex, drugs, abuse—yes, that’s the darker side of the horse industry—any walk of life to be honest. We choose what we want to be a part of, even if you have had a life that created the spiral. The key element is what choice to you want to make. And that is where House Rules gets it. The main character starts to realize where she is, what is going on and the ending, which if this is a real experience, I’ve never heard of this happening, comes to a very real and sobering reality.

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The book begins with the narrator, Lee, facing expulsion due to being caught with pot and a bunch of boys (sound familiar?). As a result, she has nowhere to go but doesn't want to go home to a father who sexually abuses her and a mother who helps him do it. Lee manages to travel to the horse circuit after making her friend repay a drug debt, and on her way there, she is molested by a man who is her seatmate. Through this we begin to see how Lee copes with the way others treat her. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-01-11 05:01:42 Boxid IA40031909 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier