Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I loved this novel, at first - it's set in a tumultuous time (the Great Depression), in two equally rich and wondrous locations (the orange groves of central Florida and the majestic mountains of North Carolina), and it tells the gripping coming of age tale of a bold and somewhat esoteric girl named Thea Atwell (fraternal twin, accomplished equestrian, sheltered upper cruster). As the story opens Thea is being sent away to the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls in North Carolina. She's been exiled from her Florida home for some unknown transgression, and the narrative alternates between her time at Yonahlossee and the previous year at home in Florida, slowly revealing exactly what happened to get her sent away. The story is compelling and beautifully written, but as it moved along I found Thea to be more and more unlikable and unsympathetic. She's selfish and cruel and unstable, and I had issues in particular with her weird and aggressive sexuality. There are a lot of sexual encounters, both at home and at Yonahlossee, and they're bizarrely graphic in a "hard nipples through my thin nightgown" and "his fingers inside me" sort of way. I kept rolling my eyes and wondering how this story went so far off the rails and turned into Fifty Shades of Grey. And as others have noted, Thea's sexuality is much more dysfunctional and disturbing than it is scandalous, which seems a failure on the part of the book. It's like the author wanted to write something bold and empowering but ended up with something strange and sad. So towards the end of the book I felt like it had slipped from 5 stars to maybe 2. Now that I'm finished and have taken some time to reflect on the book, I'm thinking maybe the author accomplished exactly what she meant to. She wrote a complicated, imperfect, totally screwed up character who still manages, at times, to be loving, brave and kind. Thea is very much a product of her circumstances, and looking back I think she does the best she can with what she has. Most importantly, she survives, and she learns to accept herself for who she is. Sure, she makes some terrible choices - but haven't we all? I think that's why I resented her so much at times; she evokes many of the things I dislike, and fear, about myself. But this makes Thea an honest, if flawed, character, and that's something I can appreciate.