History lesson for girls

Everyone remembers age 13. For Alison Glass, it was 1975, the year she moved to Weston, Connecticut, with her bohemian parents and her horse, Jazz. Life was about trying to navigate the hypocrisies of an unfamiliar affluent town and figuring out how she might blend in at school--despite her status as the new girl with a back brace for scoliosis. Kate Hamilton, the popular daughter of an egomaniacal New Age guru--the "sham shaman"--and his substance-loving wife, was an unlikely friend, the strong girl Alison regarded as her saving grace. Bonding over their love of horses, they rode away the afternoons, creating a private world for themselves as a way to survive the excesses of their surroundings and the adults who cast them adrift in such a tumultuous time. A picture emerges of a friendship that simply couldn't survive the weight of the shadows under which it was forged.--From publisher description.