Taming the Star Runner shares some surface details with Hinton's Tex (1979), such as the rural setting and the emphasis on horses. It also shares many of the same themes which mark Hinton's work and make her popular with young adult readers. However, Taming the Star Runner, with its larger world and its more interrelated concerns, is subtler than her earlier novels.

The autobiographical elements suggest Hinton's more mature self-consciousness as a writer, and the more fully realized female figures demonstrate her growing confidence in her powers of characterization.