The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani (2013)

It is 1930 and Thea Atwell has done something terrible. So terrible that she will not reveal what it was, but as a consequence she has been sent away to the Yonahlossee Riding Camp, an equestrian boarding school for young ladies of good breeding. It doesn't sound like much of a punishment - especially for someone who loves horses as much as Thea does - but she has spent her whole life isolated with only her family as company. Growing up in Florida, Thea's only companions were her twin brother Sam and her cousin Georgie. After arriving at Yonahlossee in North Carolina she must suddenly adjust to interacting with other teenage girls. But she is still haunted by the sins of her past, and only seems doomed to repeat them.

Thea is reckless and impulsive, and cared little about others' feelings. I know she's only 15 so it's believable, but it was tough to like her. Thea was emotionally distant. It's difficult, in a coming-of-age novel, to sympathize with a protagonist who you don't really know. The secrecy surrounding the terrible thing she did means that we can't really get inside her head and understand her motivations because we don't really know what she's been through. I suppose she grew and changed a bit in the novel, but it's hard to tell because her inner life is so masked. I'm troubled by the fact that she also seems to be making a similar mistake at Yonahlossee, and why would she repeat the very sort of thing that got her sent there in the first place? And without regard to the implications or consequences, when the result of her last mistake was so dire?

The big secret is eventually revealed through a series of flashbacks that slow work forward towards her departure for Yonahlossee. Unfortunately, it was mentioned way too often, with many references to the horrible thing she had done, her terrible secret, etc. It wasn't difficult to figure out what it was, so when it was finally revealed there wasn't much surprise.

The novel revolved a great deal around Thea's burgeoning sexuality, and I found her escapades a bit...icky. Now mind you, I have read everything from Flowers in the Attic to The Story of O without it bothering me - I'm not squeamish about these matters - but I had a hard time reading about some of her inappropriate shenanigans. This involved a man twice her age, though until his age was mentioned late in the book I thought he was much older. Perhaps it was his age that squicked me out, or maybe that combined with the level of detail about their encounters. Either way, it was pretty central to the novel and cast a smarmy light over the whole thing.

But there were some great aspects to the story as well. Thea's family lived in central Florida on a huge piece of land with only their closest relatives, and they hardly even knew any other people. The riding camp/school was another isolated little microcosm - it felt like the novel just moved from one little bubble to another, barely touched by the outside world, and it gave them each an otherworldly feel. Yonahlossee was a fascinating little school, full of traditions and history and a population of girls both mysterious and slightly sinister. Of course it was 1930 and lives were touched by the Depression, which did affect Thea's family and her friends at school in some ways. The best and most heartbreaking part of the novel was Thea's relationship to her twin brother Sam. I really liked reading about him and wish he appeared more.

Many pre-pub reviews are fairly glowing, but I was only able to give it 3 stars on Goodreads and just barely. It wasn't badly written and I can see why others would like it, but Thea was too much of a mystery for me to be truly engaged in her story.

I received my copy of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls as part of Penguin First Flights. It will be published in June.

Sunday Knitting

This may come as a shock to anyone who remembers how much I dislike knitting scarves, but since my rather gluttenous trip to Windsor Button not long ago, I've been compulsively knitting this scarf.

Compulsively. On the bus, while watching Dr. Who, while sitting and thinking about the other things I should be doing.

It's a simple 1x1 rib, striping every two rows. I'm using 3 colorways as the pattern recommends - I'm not sure why it recommends 3 colorways, but I couldn't find two balls of one neutral-ish colorway as I wanted to so it worked out that way anyhow. It's one colorway throughout the entire scarf, and then the more neutral one switches off halfway through to the other neutral colorway. I thought it would be less noticeable, but the neutrals are more different from each other than I thought. Well, I still like it.

It got a little dodgy around this part.

The yellow and tan combined in a most unflattering way, but luckily it all turned pink and grey again before things went too badly.

The beautiful and ever-changing colors are what make the knitting a pleasure, but probably the most important thing is how wonderful this yarn feels. Yes, I'm talking about Noro here, notorious for being scratchy, not to mention full of bits of twigs and whatnot. I kind of like finding those. (Not so much the knots, but I've only found one knot mid-skein so far, knock on wood.)

Noro Silk Garden, I should have bought you long ago, rather than just staring wistfully at you for so many years!

Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (2012), narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

In a tiny coastal village in Italy, hotel owner Pasquale Tursi is surprised to welcome his first American guest. At first he is sure she came to Porto Vergogna by mistake, but no; she is sick, even dying, and she has been sent here because it is quiet and she won't be disturbed. She an actress named Dee Moray and she is in Italy to play a minor character in the movie Cleopatra.

Flash forward to present day Hollywood where Claire Silver fields movie pitches for producer Michael Deane while managing her loser boyfriend. But one day when she expects another bad pitch, instead she is faced with an elderly Italian man insisting on seeing Michael Deane to help him find an actress who stayed at his hotel decades earlier.

The two stories, past and present, are masterfully joined in a story spanning decades and continents. The wide array of characters could have been confusing in lesser hands, but here it enriched the story with so much more life and love and heartache. It's astonishing how much happens and how well we get to know so many different characters in the course of a book that's less than 350 pages long. But it feels languorous, not rushed, and each character becomes real and important.

Although the entire novel revolves around the actress Dee Moray, it does exactly that - happens around her. She takes surprisingly little action even as she remains central to the novel. Pasquale was my favorite character, young and eager back in the 1960s as he tried to take care of his beautiful and fascinating hotel guest. His mother and aunt were the best sort of meddling old Italian ladies. Another regular visitor to Porto Vergogna was Alvis Bender, an American who had befriended Pasquale's father when Pasquale was just a child and kept returning to the hotel work on his novel about the war. We got to read an excerpt. Similarly, an entire present day chapter was a pitch for the movie Donner! by Shane Wheeler, a minor character who along with Claire Silver became caught up in the central drama of the novel. Movie producer Michael Deane was the most despicable character, wreaking havoc on the lives of those around him as he chased fame and fortune, but even he was enjoyable in that train-wreck sort of way. Pat Bender, a drug-addled musician was surprisingly easy to sympathize with (though, hilariously, in the audio he sounds like Snake from The Simpsons.)

Though I've been wanting to read this for months, I was holding out for my library network's single copy of the audiobook on Playaway because I heard fantastic reviews of the audio production. It was well worth the wait. Ballerini does an amazing job reading - in fact, he's not reading so much as he is telling us a story. Accents required for this story include Italian, Scottish, American, American speaking terrible Italian, and more that I am forgetting, but he did each of them amazingly well. He brought each of the many characters to life individually and made it all sound completely effortless and natural.

Because I'm not the best listener and because I missed a few days of work here and there recently, thus breaking up my audiobook listening more than I'd like, I'm thinking of reading the print version as well because I'm sure I'd get more out of it. Beautiful Ruins is quite cinematic and it's no surprise that it has been optioned for a movie, which could be absolutely wonderful if it's done well. (You know, exactly the way it looks in my head.) In any format, this is a truly captivating story full of people I came to care deeply about. The beauty and romance and leisurely pace are utterly bewitching. Read it, and read it this summer - it would be perfect for those hot, slow months.

A Breach of Promise

A Breach of Promise (William Monk #9) by Anne Perry (1997)

Oliver Rathbone is employed to defend a young architect in a breach of promise suit. Killian Melville is accused of backing out of his plans to marry Zillah Lambert, but he says he never proposed to her in the first place. Rathbone considers it a hopeless case; not only is it hard to defend someone for allowing plans to go so far without clearing up the misunderstanding, but he also doesn't understand why Melville is so dead set against marrying Zillah in the first place. He knows there's more to the case than this, but Melville refuses to reveal all. Rathbone employs William Monk to help him find out as much as possible about the family to help his case.

Meanwhile, Hester Latterly is nursing a returned soldier who has been grievously injured. Employed in the household is a woman who is interested in finding her two disfigured nieces who she lost track of years ago after her brother's death. She implores the visiting Monk to help her find them, and he agrees to take on what he sees as a hopeless case. Predictably, the two cases end up converging.

I thought I had the breach of promise case all figured out early on, but I was pleasantly surprised with how wrong I was. There was a twist that I didn't see coming at all! The plot is more complex than in the past books of this series. In fact, a lot of things came up in the end that would have resulted in another whole court case. I think we are left to assume that it was tied up neatly, but man, I wanted to see it happen. It was only very loosely related to the original case but was really very interesting. I wish the resolution of the original case had led into another book about this other case. But alas, the next book is something different entirely. It's strange how oddly rushed and incomplete the ending felt.

This is also a pivotal book for the long-coming romance between Monk and Hester. Unfortunately, it was just thrown with all the other wrapping-up that happened in a rush at the end. I've been waiting patiently since book one for them to recognize their affection for each other, so I was satisfied that it finally happened.

In many ways the books in this series are all the same. The same sorts of people appear over and over, Monk and Hester have the same sorts of conversations and arguments. They are also a little too accepting of things like homosexuality and women's rights considering the time in which they live (which I'm fine with, as it makes them more likable to me.) But these books are such comfort reads! Here in the Boston area last week, that was exactly what I wanted. I was far too distracted by the events surrounding the Marathon bombing to read anything else and was very glad to have this paperback on my shelf when I most needed it.

Despite my criticisms of the ending, I think the plots were among the most interesting and compelling of the series so far. As a side note, I don't think I ever notice the covers on these books - I can't even think what any of the others look like - but I really like this one. Something about the black and white photo, especially the lady with her umbrella, appeals to me. I'm looking forward to continuing on to the next book in the series!

Half of a Yellow Sun

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006)

In the 1960s part of Nigeria fought to establish the independent republic of Biafra. Caught up in this revolutionary time is young Ugwu, a 13-year-old boy who knows nothing about politics until he goes to work as a houseboy for a university professor. The professor's girlfriend Olanna is our second protagonist. The third is Olanna's sister's boyfriend Richard, a shy and soft-spoke man from England. Through these three characters, Adichie shares the story of what it was like to be in Nigeria during this turbulent part of history.

Ugwu was concerned more about getting the opportunity to touch a neighbor's breasts than anything important going on in his country, proving that teenage boys are pretty much the same everywhere. He was from a small village, though adapted well to living in his master's nice home surrounded by educated, cultured people. As the novel spanned several years we saw him grow up a bit, but in a lot of ways he remained rather simple. He generally did what was expected of him and when he made his own decisions, he didn't have the best judgment.

When his master told him of the imminent arrival of his girlfriend, Ugwu dreaded meeting her but he was quickly enamored of Olanna and she became quite protective of him. Olanna was beautiful and from a good family, though her relationship with her twin sister was rocky. Although set against a backdrop of political change, the interpersonal relationships between the sisters and their boyfriends, with all the accompanying tensions and betrayals, provided much of the compelling force of the novel.

The third protagonist, Richard, was from England but trying to make a home in Nigeria while writing about the country and its art. His attempts were mostly frustrated though; he wrote in fits and stops, never quite able to latch onto a good idea. He learned to speak the local language, Igbo, and when Biafra was born he considered himself Biafran as he was there during its formation. Of course, to the locals he was and would always be a white outsider.

I didn't know what to expect from this novel. Part of the reason I chose it is because I know so little about Nigeria (or any African country really) but it is currently one of just a few countries with a flourishing economy right now. Although I was interested in its history, I worried that the book would be dense. I had nothing to fear, because I easily flew through the more than 500 pages of compelling story about unforgettable characters. Adichie brought 1960s Nigeria alive with wonderful details about not just the political situation, but aspects of everyday life such as food, clothing and music.

Now I understand why her new novel, Americanah, is so eagerly anticipated. Although I heard of Half of a Yellow Sun several years ago and kept meaning to try it, reading her short story "Ceiling" not long ago spurred me to finally pick it up, along with my newfound interest in Nigeria. Now I can't wait to read everything else she's written.

Why Evolution is True

Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne (2009)

I don't know about you, but I learned very little in my high school science classes. I think we were taught the very basics about evolution and natural selection but although I believe it's true I couldn't tell you at all why (and this goes for many principles in science). Not long ago I read of this book somewhere - I wish I could remember where - and thinking it was a brand new book on the topic, put it on the top of my reading list. Turns out it's a few years old so I don't know how it ended up on my radar, but it's a great guide to understanding the basics of evolution.

As Coyne explains in the introduction, only 40% of Americans believe that humans evolved from earlier species of animals (compared to over 80% of Scandinavians, for example) and nearly two-thirds think that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. For those of us who like our science based on facts and not fairy-tales, this is alarming. It became clear to Coyne that a response to evolution as "just a theory" was needed, both to educate those who don't believe and to provide facts to arm those of us who need them to support our positions.

The evidence is presented clearly in chapters about the fossil record, embryology, biogeography, speciation, and other topics. A lay audience is assumed so even basic principles are thankfully explained (plus there's a glossary at the end!). But nothing is overexplained or delved into too deeply and the book, not including notes and references, is a manageable 233 pages. Out of that, there was probably a total of 2-3 pages that I somewhat skimmed because it was incomprehensible to me. Specifically, anything about genetics does not compute in my liberal arts brain. (I just requested a graphic novel about DNA and genetics from the library - I'm determined to understand these things.)

Every subject covered was new and interesting to me, but I was most fascinated by the chapter about biogeography, the study of the way organisms are distributed across the planet. There is a group of islands I had never even heard of before - part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago - upon which reside a staggering number of species of birds, plants, and insects that exist nowhere else in the world. (One of these islands was also home for several years to a castaway named Alexander Selkirk, the supposed inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.) The relationships between species in such isolated areas, and the ways some species have been able to travel widely, provide important clues about evolution and, in fact, only make sense in the context of evolution as opposed to intelligent design. And that is just a tiny taste of one chapter.

As someone who appreciates the outdoors a great deal, I feel a bit silly because of how little I know about the the natural world. I've made feeble attempts in the past to understand various bits of science and thought it was beyond me, but now I realize I just need the right tools to help me understand. Surely there are other books that are as simple and accessible as Why Evolution is True, I just need to find them. For now, I'm looking forward to a couple of other books on evolution that have been published in the last few months. The first is Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter, which focuses exclusively on human evolution and why we are the only human species to have survived. I'm also very interested in Between Man and Beast by Monte Reel, the story of a 19th century explorer who emerged from the African wilderness with important zoological specimens and found himself in the center of the evolution controversy. I will, of course, report back and tell you all about them!

Sunday Knitting

Last week I was catching up on posts from the Yarn Harlot, and came across an interesting discussion about how much should be explained in patterns. It began when Stephanie was knitting late at night and came across this instruction in a pattern: "Reverse shapings to match other side." She tweeted that it was a bad instruction for so late in the evening, which generated a huge discussion about how specific patterns should be. YH was quick to point out that she had only been commenting that it was time for her to put down her project and go to bed, but thought in fact that it's ok for designers to assume a certain level of skills on the part of the knitter.

Although the Yarn Harlot concluded that it's just a matter of personal preference, I keep thinking about it and I'm not so sure. I think there's a big difference between the parts of a pattern that you can look up and figure out how to do, and the parts that can only be figured out if you know what's in the designer's mind.

For instance, if a pattern says to use a provisional cast-on, you can look up "provisional cast-on" because it has a name and requires a specific set of steps. Same goes for k2g, kitchener stitch, Dutch heel and so on. Even if a technique has more than one name, it is still the same thing and if occasionally there's more than one way to do it, it will presumably produce a very similar result.

If, however, the pattern says something like "reverse shaping" things get a little unclear. Which parts exactly do you reverse? I once made a cardigan front and for the other front the directions said something like "do all that, but in the opposite way." For the designer, it may seem obvious what that specifically means, but for a knitter who hasn't made that exact pattern before, it may not be. What exactly do I do the opposite way? Do I use ssk instead of k2tog? Decrease on the ends of the rows instead of the beginnings? On the other piece I decreased on the right side, so now do I do it on the wrong side? For that matter, do I increase instead of decrease? Ok, that's getting a bit ludicrous maybe, but it illustrates my point. Add in a cable or lace chart, or maybe some colorwork, and the waters become even more muddied.

Just a day or two after I began thinking about this, I received a message on Ravelry from a knitter who is working on the Cabled Baby Raglan and knit the first 4 rows, coming to the instructions "continue in pattern." She understandably had some questions, as 4 rows is hardly enough to establish a pattern. In fact, last summer when I made this garment, I ended up ripping back and starting again because I incorrectly interpreted that very part of the instructions. And I'm a fairly seasoned knitter who has read a lot of patterns, some of which were quite complicated. I realize that patterns are edited for brevity so they try not to be too wordy, but we need those words. They tell us what to do.

Now I'm not saying that every single row needs to be spelled out. But instead of "continue in pattern" it might be more clear to say "continue in stockinette with garter edge, increasing as set until you have (number) stitches." Instead of "work as for left front, but reversed," the instructions could say "work as for left front, but ssk instead of k2tog, and increase at the beginning of RS rows instead of at the end." See? That's not so hard.

Knitters, what do you think? Am I expecting too much of pattern designers? Have you run into roadblocks because of vague instructions?