Rules of the Wild

Recently I have been thinking about my college days.  Maybe it is the start of college football and all the talk of where we went to college (my school, however, did not have a football team).

I was a ranch girl at a fancy school in a fancy city.  To say I didn't fit in was the least of it.  Most of the time I just didn't know what to do with myself and I spent a lot of time alone.  Mainly wondering what the heck I was doing there.

I eventually found amazing outlets for my loneliness and an independent girl became even more independent.  One outlet was the beach.  A main reason for choosing said college.  Another outlet was the Getty Museum.  Second semester senior year I didn't have any classes on Friday.  I would spend the whole day at the museum.

Another outlet was the Third Street Promenade, and more specifically the Barnes and Noble there.  It was there that I picked up Rules of the Wild by Francesca Marciano.

I've always been a big reader, but this book to me was so different.  I sat down and read it in one sitting.  That was the very first time that I had done that.  And, I've since done it many, many times!

This book was so different to me.  It has a heroine who, in my opinion then, is always fucking up.  As a reader you don't want her to do the things she does.  I was completely emotionally involved with the book.  And fascinated.  It is the first book that I can remember reading where the heroine isn't an absolutely perfect character.  Or maybe just the first book that I fell in love with that character.

Esme is from Italy.  She loses her father, and herself, and wallows around in Kenya.  Not that I would have any idea of the expatriate scene in Nairobi, but it gives a beautiful and sad portrait of that scene.  The way I imagine all expatriate settings to be.  Exciting.  Lonely.  Haunting.  Substance abusing.

And it gives a beautiful portrait of what I imagine Kenya to be.  Large and hostile.

The book is filled with hunting safaris, war reporters, and locals.  It is filled with people who are just drifting.  Which is maybe why it appealed to me so much as I was drifting in college.

I have since read the book many, many times.  I just found it on my shelf and have added it to my stack to read again this fall.

Have you read this book?  What did you think?  And, if you decide to read it, be sure to come back and share your comments!