Name: The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
ISBN: 9781594486401

Anton DiSclafani

Exiled to an equestrienne boarding school in the South at the height of the Great Depression for her mysterious role in a family tragedy, strong-willed teen Thea Atwell grapples with painful memories while acclimating to the school's strict environment. A first novel.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

Megan Gardner

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I didn't like the main character at all.

Tanya Sutton

Thea Atwell, 15, has been sent from her family home in Florida to attend a girls boarding school for the southern elite, one at which she will learn to become an accomplished horsewoman. Over the course of her stay, she learns to navigate this world filled with young women, much different from the isolated life she led at home with her parents and twin brother, while she recovers from a mysterious tragedy in which she has played a central role.

I had high hopes for YONAHLOSSEE after all of the rave reviews it received. It was described as spellbinding, lush, provocative, and smart. It even made Oprah's Summer Reading List.

Initially, I found the book a page turner. I was drawn into the vivid world DiSclafani described - first the hushed, sheltered world that Thea grew up in, and then the majestic wild of the mountains in which the camp is nestled. The social structure of the camp, with it's regional cliques and finishing school schedule (yes, French was a part of the curicculum) created a picture of life for wealthy young women on the verge of the Great Depression.

My problem with this novel, however, is simply how unlikable Thea is. When the reader is first introduced to Thea, she is a quiet girl, reluctant to leave her father's side. She is timid and shy but has a deep love for horses, and we are treated to hints about a family scandal that ruined her family's life back home in Floriday. As Thea becomes more acclimated to her life at the camp, she has to make choices about her relationships with the other girls, as well as with the adults in her life. She does not simply make bad choices of the kind you would attribute to a girl her age, but dangerous and disturbing choices that made me question the author's purpose for this character. Thea was also an extremely selfish character, which is to be expected at her age, but without a transformation into a young woman more cognizant of her situation in life, the novel's ending was weak, rushed, and ultimately disappointing.

In addition, the other characters were not well developed and felt like shallow stereotypes. Her brother was described as an animal lover with no other apparent characteristics. Sissy, Thea's friend at the camp, was a sweet girl that everyone liked but was sheltered and foolish. The adults are even worse - her parents are portrayed as having created a "progressive childhood," but it is never explained why they kept their children so sheltered and separate, or if they had desires and hopes of their own.

In the end, this was a book I truly wanted to like, but just couldn't find much about it to enjoy.

(I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

b.andherbooks

A privileged girl who's family feels no effects from the onset of the Great Depression is sent to a horse-riding camp for ladies in North Carolina due to a mysterious indiscretion that is only slowly revealed as you read. I did not feel much empathy with the main character, as it did not seem she truly grew or learned much besides the fact she should be here own person, no matter what her family thinks. I also thought the 'mysterious circumstances' that led to her banishment were truly horrible. I just kept thinking #richwhitegirlproblems the entire time I read this novel.

Exiled to an equestrienne boarding school in the South at the height of the Great Depression for her mysterious role in a family tragedy, strong-willed teen Thea Atwell grapples with painful memories while acclimating to the school's strict environment. A first novel. Reprint.

Rebecca Light

A brave and sensual dive into a sixteen year old girl's sexual awakening.

Gigi V

Amelia Welker

“This summer’s first romantic page turner.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Named a most anticipated book for Summer 2013 by The Wall Street Journaland Publishers Weekly and USA Today, NPR, and People summer reads pick From the author of The After Party, a lush, sexy, evocative debut novel of family secrets and girls’-school rituals, set in the 1930s South. It is 1930, the midst of the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy, passionate, strong-willed Thea Atwell, age fifteen, has been cast out of her Florida home, exiled to an equestrienne boarding school for Southern debutantes. High in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty, and girls’ friendships, the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a far remove from the free-roaming, dreamlike childhood Thea shared with her twin brother on their family’s citrus farm—a world now partially shattered. As Thea grapples with her responsibility for the events of the past year that led her here, she finds herself enmeshed in a new order, one that will change her sense of what is possible for herself, her family, her country. Weaving provocatively between home and school, the narrative powerfully unfurls the true story behind Thea’s expulsion from her family, but it isn’t long before the mystery of her past is rivaled by the question of how it will shape her future. Part scandalous love story, part heartbreaking family drama, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is an immersive, transporting page-turner—a vivid, propulsive novel about sex, love, family, money, class, home, and horses, all set against the ominous threat of the Depression—and the major debut of an important new writer.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

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