The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

April 1, 2013
The setup for this debut novel is delectable: it’s 1930, the country is tumbling into depression, and 15-year-old Thea has done something bad enough to get her sent from Florida to an elite year-round “camp” in North Carolina where, at least at first, the effects of the economy are kept at bay while affluent Southern girls become “ladies.” DiSclafani, who grew up around horses, is at her best when recreating the intuition and strength of girls in the saddle. Otherwise Thea’s narration feels flattened by history and the characters she encounters never achieve dimensionality. The build toward the revelation of Thea’s crime is drawn out, sapping the reveal of drama, but the account of Thea’s emerging sexuality provides meaningful reflections on the potency of teenage desire. Here too, however, DiSclafani seems distanced from her characters, relying on declarations such as “I was not weak,” “I was angry,” and “I was glum” when exploring the tension of conflicting feelings. Though there are many twists and turns, the prose numbs the pleasure of reading about even the most forbidden of Thea’s trysts. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME Entertainment.

Starred review from April 15, 2013
DiSclafani's debut chronicles a teenager's life-changing year at an elite boarding school in the North Carolina mountains. Thea arrives at the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, expanded years earlier to a year-round school, in the summer of 1930. She has been sent away from her home in central Florida for an initially mysterious offense, and she bitterly regrets her exile from the isolated rural paradise she roamed freely with her twin brother, Sam. Though she frequently tells us she has rarely spent time with anyone other than relatives, Thea is a self-assured newcomer who quickly assumes a favored spot in the girls' pecking order, partly because she's taken up by popular Sissy, partly because she's an excellent horsewoman, but mostly because this stunned survivor of family ostracism seems to her peers a cool, detached observer indifferent to their approval. In elegant prose that evokes the cadences of a vanished epoch, DiSclafani unfolds at a leisurely pace the twin narratives of Thea's odyssey at school and the charged relationship with her cousin Georgie that led to a confrontation with Sam and disgrace. Sympathetic new friends, like the school's headmaster, Mr. Holmes, help her see that her parents unfairly chose to punish her and protect Sam, but as Thea and Holmes move into an affair, she acknowledges the fierce, unabashed sexuality that frightened her family and means she will never be the sort of proper young lady Yonahlossee was designed to cultivate. Times are changing, even in this privileged enclave; several girls have to leave when their ruined fathers can no longer pay the bills, and Thea's family is forced to sell the home she yearns for. DiSclafani writes with equal intelligence and precision about female desire and a rider's kinship with her horse; her perfectly judged denouement allows Thea to simultaneously sacrifice herself for a friend and defiantly affirm that she will only be "a right girl" on her own terms. An unusually accomplished and nuanced coming-of-age drama.

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Starred review from April 15, 2013
Set in the 1930s, full of alluring descriptions, and featuring a headstrong lead character, this is a literary novel that is also full of scandal, sex, and secrets. Fifteen-year-old Thea Atwell has been banished from her Florida family and sent to an exclusive equestrienne boarding school located high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Homeschooled along with her fraternal twin, Thea had lived an overprotected and insular existence until the tragic incident that triggered her ouster from the family. Thrust into a complicated social milieu of southern debutantes and their rigid pecking order based on money, lineage, and looks, Thea struggles with overwhelming feelings of guilt and homesickness as well as the challenge of fitting into her new school. But she also begins to feel her power, both because she knows she is beautiful and because she is an expert rider. Some readers will be put off by the book's deliberate pacing and explicit sex scenes, but others will be held in thrall by the world so vividly and sensually rendered in a novel that is as sophisticated in its writing as it is in its themes. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This stellar debut novel was reported to have been bought for seven figures and has received blurbs from such high-profile authors as Curtis Sittenfeld and Lauren Groff.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2013

Young, beautiful, and privileged, Thea Atwell lives on a sprawling ranch in Florida. She loves her twin brother, her parents, and, most of all, her horses. But while she intuitively understands the equestrian life, social isolation and unusual family dynamics have left her confused. She yields to her youthful desires and ends up in trouble with a boy, with disastrous consequences that compel her parents to send her to a horse camp for girls in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, Thea learns how to navigate a complex yet nurturing social environment, one that allows her to acquire the life lessons she so desperately needs. Even as the Great Depression compounds the shattering of Thea's once predictable world, she ultimately finds the measure of her own strength. VERDICT Engrossing, empathetic, and atmospheric, this debut will resonate with readers as the author eloquently portrays the inevitable missteps in coming of age. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/12.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis, IN

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013

Much buzzed even before it was bought, this debut is set during the Depression at the fictional Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls in Blue Ridge, NC, where the rebellious young heroine finds a chance to grow. Don't miss.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2013

Young, beautiful, and privileged, Thea Atwell lives on a sprawling ranch in Florida. She loves her twin brother, her parents, and, most of all, her horses. But while she intuitively understands the equestrian life, social isolation and unusual family dynamics have left her confused. She yields to her youthful desires and ends up in trouble with a boy, with disastrous consequences that compel her parents to send her to a horse camp for girls in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, Thea learns how to navigate a complex yet nurturing social environment, one that allows her to acquire the life lessons she so desperately needs. Even as the Great Depression compounds the shattering of Thea's once predictable world, she ultimately finds the measure of her own strength. VERDICT Engrossing, empathetic, and atmospheric, this debut will resonate with readers as the author eloquently portrays the inevitable missteps in coming of age. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/12.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis, IN

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.