The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater - 3.5 stars

I read this book as both a buddy read and then a book for the TBRTakedown 3.0. I found the book to be very engaging even though I had a lot of questions unanswered. And I found the story did not live up the synopsis.
Synopsis
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

Ok so I loved the premise of this book if we go by what was in the actual synopsis about this dangerous yet exciting race on Water horses on the beach. Some will live and some will die. Ok so who would not like that? Right? But what I got was the 'preparation of the racers before the race'. If the synopsis told me that then this would have been a much higher rating because I would have gotten what I was expecting. The story is not bad by any means the problem is that the actual exciting race did not happen till pg. 380 out of a 404 pg. book. That was a bit disappointing to me. There was also no magic system in this book unless we consider the water horse magic, and they could be I guess,but they actually stem from Scottish mythology, which is interesting. The questions I have that are left unanswered is phenomenal and would have been helpful had they been answered. I also wonder if there will be a sequel to this that would answer these questions or if we are gonna be left here not knowing the things we want to know. Like I said at the beginning of this review, the book was very engaging even though I did not get the actual race till the end of the book. I really had a hard time putting the book down. It flowed well. This author can write well, she has a great gift, but maybe give the reader what they expect to receive from reading the synopsis of the book.

The characters in this book I absolutely loved and that is plus when reading a book like this. It is definitely character driven. I fell in love with both Puck and Sean and I loved how this relationship developed. No Instalove! YAY! I felt like the characters were very relatable, and very likable. We also had some antagonists that were pretty good, not the best, but they were good. I could see them develop into far more with a sequel.

So overall it was a decent read, but a somewhat misleading synopsis, along with some unanswered questions that I would love to have answers to. I could recommend this book to others that like fantasy, as long they know that this is not so much about a race but about the characters who will participate in that race with no real magic system.