Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education Of Two Society Girls In The West (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
This book was on display at the check-out desk of my library because one of the reading groups is currently reading it. I really wanted to like it - I have enjoyed many books in the past about the first women to settle the western United States. The author had access to a treasure trove of correspondence between the women and their wealthy, influential families back east.I only made it about fifteen pages past the prologue when I gave up. In an attempt to provide the historical context of the young women's adventure, the author overloads text with details that detract from the flow of the story. Other details seemed to have been added to make the story more vivid, but to me seemed to surely to have been fabricated.I skimmed further through the book - it seems like the young women had some amazing trials along the way. I am sorry I won't be finding out about them, but felt too irritated by the first chapter to give this book more of my time. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did, because there is vast potential here. Dorothy Wickenden is the granddaughter of one of two well-born New York women who, out of boredom and a sense of mission, ventured west in 1916 to teach for a year in a rural school in Colorado. Wickenden did a wealth of research and had a great deal of material at her disposal, including letters from the protagonists and interviews with many people who knew them. But her writing style is dry and unemotional, and the extensive excerpts from the letters are, shall we say, hardly great literature. I also found the attempts to contextualize the story in terms of historical events to be halfhearted and not very illuminating. Most astoundingly, after a year forming supposedly deep attachments with the people whom they met in Colorado, Dorothy Woodruff and her friend Ros seemed to be able to depart with little sense of loss. I've come to the conclusion that editors like Wickenden should confine themselves to editing, because they don't seem to know how to fashion compelling tales out of golden cloth.
What do You think about Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education Of Two Society Girls In The West (2011)?
A good read about western Colorado in the early 1900s with interesting characters.
—Brooklynolivia
Wonderful book that may lead to a CO road trip to explore the places mentioned.
—Scarlet
I really, really liked this book! I highly recommend it!
—joy
