Review of "Caroline's Purpose" by Erica Zaborac

Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

What do you do when the things that once gave your life meaning are suddenly ripped away? Caroline’s Purpose begins in that exact place of heartbreak, following a young woman who has lost not just her dreams, but her sense of who she is without them. How can she regain the parts of herself and her life that seem dead, gone, and buried?

We've all experienced something like that. We've all had a passion, a dream, a career, or hobby that we put so much into only to see it slip. We get injured. We get married. We have kids. We gain weight. We get out of shape. There's an accident, a divorce, a world-shattering diagnosis, or something that puts "important" into perspective.

We ask ourselves: will we ever be back? Can we ever get back to the thing(s) that ignited our fire years ago?

Caroline’s Purpose by Erica Zaborac is not a shiny, triumphant horse-riding-girl fantasy where everything magically clicks back into place. It's a story about how real life can pull the rug out from under you. It's a book about climbing and crawling back—discovering/rediscovering God's purpose for you. And, yes, this book does have a bit of a Christian angle with both Coach Sullivan and Connor serving as voices who keep gently nudging Caroline toward the possibility that pain is not the end of her story. Thankfully, that element is usually handled with a soft hand rather than a sledgehammer. The book is not just trying to preach at Caroline. It is trying to show how someone who feels abandoned by God might slowly, reluctantly, painfully find her way back to belief. That is a much stronger and more human angle than if the novel had just forced some instant spiritual breakthrough on her. It's a message we all need to hear from time to time.

Caroline’s Purpose centers on Caroline Davis, a college sophomore whose life has been shattered twice.

Years earlier, she had been a gifted young event rider on the rise, seemingly destined for a major future in the horse world. Then a catastrophic riding accident changed everything. Her beloved horse Beau was euthanized after a rotational fall, Caroline herself was critically injured, and the entire identity she had built around horses collapsed. Instead of returning to riding, she buried that life and redirected all of her ambition into softball, where she became an elite pitcher. But just as she built a second dream for herself, that one was taken too when an arm injury ended her softball career. By the time the novel opens, Caroline is living in the hollowed-out aftermath of both losses. She is physically present, but spiritually stuck. She is grieving Beau, grieving softball, and grieving the person she used to be.

The book opens with Caroline waking from a nightmare about Beau and the accident. That dream immediately establishes the emotional wound at the center of the novel. She is now back in school, studying at the University of Arizona, and facing a semester she dreads. Her advisor has pushed her toward Equine Science, not knowing that horses are the very thing Caroline has spent years avoiding. Caroline has secretly enrolled in horse-related classes, including one involving weanling training, but she has not told her parents. Her mother Holly is still a prominent horse trainer and top eventer, and her father Doug is a former major league pitcher. Both are accomplished athletes, and Caroline has grown up in a house shaped by excellence, competition, and discipline. But for Caroline, that world no longer feels like home. She feels like someone who has been stripped of every role that once gave her value.

Even at home, she is disconnected. Her room has been stripped of the softball awards and reminders of her past. Her Bible sits dusty and unopened because, after losing Beau and then losing softball, Caroline has decided that God either does not care or is not worth trusting. She no longer believes there is any purpose behind what happened to her. That loss of faith is just as important as the physical losses. She is not simply afraid of horses. She is afraid of meaninglessness.

In the equine class, Caroline meets Connor Taylor. Connor comes from a horse-breeding family and is deeply at ease in the world Caroline fears. He is kind, observant, grounded, and openly Christian. He immediately recognizes Caroline, because he remembers her from the competition world and knows exactly who she used to be: the brilliant young rider everyone assumed would go far.

Caroline, however, does not recognize him. Even more importantly, she lies on her intro card and claims to have no horse experience. Connor realizes very quickly that something deeper is going on. He sees her shaking hands, her fear around horses, and the disconnect between the rider he remembers and the girl now sitting beside him.

They are paired together and assigned a weanling filly named Luna. That pairing becomes the first major engine of the story. Luna is sweet but not perfect, and working with her forces Caroline into daily, practical contact with horses again. Connor becomes her steady support. He does not bully her forward or expose her secrets. He simply helps, watches, and makes himself reliable. Through halter work, leading, grooming, and basic training, Luna becomes the first horse Caroline can begin to trust again. At the same time, Luna is not emotionally neutral for Caroline. The filly is related to Beau, which means every interaction brings comfort and pain at once. Luna is a living reminder of what Caroline lost, but she is also proof that not every horse relationship has to end in catastrophe.

Running parallel to this horse storyline is Caroline’s unraveling relationship with her longtime boyfriend Ryan Cole, a baseball star whose career is rising just as hers has ended. Ryan, one of the book's main antagonists, is almost instantly unlikable. At first, he seems like a familiar part of Caroline’s life. They have history, shared athletic ambition, and old affection. But the deeper the novel goes, the clearer it becomes that Ryan cannot truly meet Caroline where she is. He is wrapped up in his own success, his MLB prospects, his baseball schedule, and his sense that the future will work out because he will make it work out. He keeps talking about his achievements while Caroline quietly drowns beside him. He offers shallow reassurance instead of real empathy. The painful truth is not that Ryan is malicious, but that he is self-absorbed enough to become emotionally cruel without fully realizing it. Ryan is also quite possessive, jealous, and insecure, calling, texting, and demanding a fast response each time. Ryan is contrasted with Connor, who is a much better guy in almost every way. Well, except when it comes to baseball, maybe. But who really cares?

One of the book’s most painful early scenes comes when Caroline, desperate to feel like herself again, sneaks into the softball bullpen and tries to throw a pitch. She wants, just for one second, to prove that the doctors were wrong and that she still has the life she lost. Instead, the ball dies in front of her, pain shoots through her arm, and she collapses into grief. Her coach catches her in that vulnerable moment. He gently tells her that when his own athletic dreams died, life still continued and meaning eventually returned, even if not in the way he expected. This scene matters because it shows Caroline hitting the wall. Softball is not coming back. She cannot use it as a replacement identity anymore. The crutch is gone.

The novel also reveals more of Caroline’s original horse trauma through flashbacks. When she was fourteen, Beau was not just a horse to her. He was her partner, her future, and her joy. After the accident, she returned home physically battered and emotionally ruined. Her parents, especially her mother, wanted to help her re-enter the horse world, even going so far as to shop for another event horse for her. But instead of feeling supported, Caroline felt cornered. She could not bear the idea of replacing Beau, and the pressure pushed her further away. She boxed up her ribbons, photos, and trophies and shut that chapter of her life away. Later, when she succeeded in softball, that became her answer to the pity she felt from others. If she could be great at something else, maybe no one would look at her like she was broken. But after her arm injury, she is once again exactly where she never wanted to be: pitied, uncertain, and without a future she recognizes.

As Caroline and Connor spend more time together, their friendship deepens naturally. They eat lunch together. They talk more openly. Caroline begins to laugh. Connor becomes a place of calm. He is not flashy, but he listens in a way Ryan does not. He notices her moods. He remembers details. He offers help without making her feel weak. Slowly, she begins trusting him. At the same time, Ryan grows jealous. He shows up at the farm watching Caroline and Connor work with Luna. Later, he confronts Connor and accuses him of changing Caroline. He even threatens violence. This is the turning point where Ryan’s insecurity and entitlement come fully into view.

Something else happens in the second half of the book that some readers will have mixed feelings about (like we did):

Luna, who initially feels like the emotional and narrative center of Caroline’s return to horses, gradually gets overshadowed by Edison. Luna is the first bridge. She is the sweet but not perfect weanling who helps Caroline relearn trust through haltering, leading, grooming, trailer loading, and all those small, practical class moments. She matters. A lot. In many ways, Luna is the horse who gets Caroline’s foot back in the door. But once Edison enters the picture as the wounded, volatile, abused stallion with much heavier symbolism attached to him, the novel’s center of gravity starts to shift.

And to be fair, we understand why. Edison is simply written as the more dramatically charged horse. He is not just a horse Caroline works with. He becomes a mirror for her. He is fearful, damaged, hard to reach, and operating from old hurt, just like she is. Some of the book’s strongest material comes from Caroline connecting with him, calming him, grooming him, and even finding an unexpectedly clever way to introduce Connor to him. Those scenes are powerful, intimate, and packed with emotional payoff. It is very easy to see why the author leans into them.

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