I've read descriptions of the book which say that it is about the bond between a boy and a broken down racehorse... this is misleading. The Huck Finn echoes are more helpful. A young boy facing almost impossible odds, with absent, feckless father, has to rely on his own ingenuity (and basic decency) to survive. He encounters both humanity at its worst, and yet he also is given a helping hand, and benefits from the kindness of strangers.

If you like Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Savage, John Williams, Richard Yates, (John Steinbeck and even Ernest Hemingway), then you will appreciate the style of this narrative. It manages to embue the contemporary with a mythic feel. (That sounds like a bold claim; but the themes are universal.)