The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

I just finished this one yesterday, and I am still stuck on it a little.

Thea comes from a wealthy family in Florida during the Depression-era. We come in when she is just being dropped off by her father at the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls; oh look, they said the name of the book in the book. We do not know the pretenses of the her situation, all we know is that she hates it and does not get why her parents sent her away over her twin brother, Sam. You have to immediately wonder, what the hell did she do??

I will not tell you what happened, because that is the basis for why I had to keep reflecting on it and talking it over with one of my best friends who also happens to love reading as well. Just saying that it is a fucked up situation, because 1920s.

I will talk about other stuff, though, like how you see a wonderful progression with how Thea grows, especially mentally. She goes from a naive child growing up in I think a setting where it does itself for disaster, and being that she is basically ditched at a place that is completely new geographically and socially, and becomes someone who is figuring out how to think independently from her family. She has her own mind and her own values, and during this time at Yonahlossee she is surrounded by people who are both opposed to this way of growing and those that support it. I appreciate her quick decision making in connecting with those that will support her and she support them while maintaining the proper social graces with those who would not support it. I would not support her choices, but I do understand that it is not like she is a terrible person. Yonahlossee is a great example of giving you a very broken main character, giving you moments where you can observe and dissect how and why she is the way she is, and putting her in that muddled yay-or-nay social position where you also can make your own opinion while knowing that she is just going to do what she wants to do anyway. So get over it.

I love the cast that surrounds her, both at camp and at home. Given the context of what is going on in the country, the cracks of every individual become so apparent, and it makes you feel lucky that even though we are also going through something big, though not as big as that, we have learned to be open about the cracks and not hide our issues. Nowadays we are encouraged to let it out. You get the opposite with Yonahlossee, and you see the repercussions. It made me mad, the cowardice. I think there is my other reason for my liking Thea; as she figures life out, she looks at other people and realizes who she does not want to be. She knows she would not be her mother, she would not be her father, and she would not be her aunt, uncle, or Henny, etc.

I would read this again after giving it many years for me to forget about it, just so that when I do read it again I will just get mad and frustrated again, but maybe next time I will look at it a different way, and maybe throw in some large quantities of pity in there with all the other bullshit that got Thea in the places she ended up. If interested, you can find The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls here.

10/10