EDUCATED by Tara Westover

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Educated is an absolute page-turner —  it is gripping and shocking. It reads like a novel and has many of the same elements that are found in a work of fiction. The protagonist is on a quest and there is substantial conflict with the story’s antagonists —her father and oldest brother.

At its core, Educated is about Tara’s search for self and her transformation.  Moreover, it speaks to the resilience of the human spirit as well as the power of hope and determination.  It is a remarkable story and I am very glad that Westover had the courage to write it.

As a young child, Tara quickly realizes that her family is different. For starters, they don’t go to school. Her father does not believe in them — he views schools as government-supported brainwashing. 

Dad said public school was a ploy by the Government to lead children away from God. “I may as well surrender my kids to the devil himself,” he said, “as send them down the road to that school.”

While her oldest siblings were homeschooled, being the last of seven children, Tara did not get much in the way of education. By that time, her Mom was busy with midwife duties and growing her small business of oils and tinctures.  

Tara does not “exist” — besides not attending school, she doesn’t have a birth certificate (born at home) or any medical records (has never seen a doctor).  It is not until she is 9 years old that the she becomes “legitimate” and gets a delayed certificate of birth.

I remember the day it came in the mail. It felt oddly dispossessing, being handed this first legal proof of my personhood: until that moment, it had never occurred to me that proof was required.

Tara’s escape from this very dysfunctional world, where she and her siblings are actually maimed while working at their father’s junkyard, is through books.  At the urging of Tyler, one of her older brothers, she undertakes a program of self-study in order to pass the ACT test so that she can attend college. It’s unbelievable in this day and age that she first enters a classroom at the age of 17 at college.  Tara is extremely disadvantaged because of her lack of an education and struggles to “catch up.” But her perseverance is remarkable and she pushes forward. Her father’s opposition to a traditional education is well illustrated by these two quotes about college:

“College is extra school for people too dumb to learn the first time around,” Dad said.

“There’s two kinds of them college professors,” Dad said. “Those who know they’re lying, and those who think they’re telling the truth.” Dad grinned. “Don’t know which is worse, come to think of it, a bona fide agent of the Illuminati, who at least knows he’s on the devil’s payroll, or a high-minded professor who thinks his wisdom is greater than God’s.”

Along her journey, she is plagued with self-doubt, unsure of what exactly is real.  One of her older brothers, Shawn, is abusive and tries to brainwash her into believing in a view of herself and a reality that run counter to her own. Because he is so manipulative and good at it, Tara begins to blame herself for the troubles she has with Shawn.

I begin to reason with myself, to doubt whether I had spoken clearly: what had I whispered and what had I screamed? I decide that if I had asked differently, been more calm, he would have stopped. I write this until I believe it, which doesn’t take long because I want to believe it. It’s comforting to think the defect is mine, because that means it is under my power.

It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you, I had written in my journal. But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.

Once Tara experiences the outside world, it becomes more and more difficult for her to be silent and accept the dysfunction at home. While growing up, Tara had only one reality and had no choice but to fully accept and embrace it. While the outside world was always considered to hold the wrong or irrational views, now Tara begins to see her family as deviant. Tara struggles with trying to understand the dynamics in her family and tries to make sense of the dysfunction.

As Tara’s world grows and she learns more, she is faced with tremendous cognitive dissonance.  How do you reconcile these two diametrically opposed belief systems — the world view ingrained in her by her parents and  a new reality borne out of learning and new experiences? 

....I felt alienated from myself. I didn’t know who to be.

Once her eyes are opened, she cannot return to the limited perspective she had before.  While reading, I couldn’t help but think that If Tara had never pursued a formal education, she would’ve remained trapped in this world, brainwashed and possibly broken. 

Ultimately Tara’s goal is something that many of us take for granted —  to develop and shape her own mind with her own attitudes and beliefs.  She yearns for the freedom to choose for herself what to believe after being told by her family how to think and what to think. You see, it wasn’t just Shawn manipulating her, it was also her parents who brainwashed her.

Everything they did had always made sense to me, adhering to a logic I understood…But here, so near the university, they seemed so unreal as to be almost mythic.

My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute.

It’s astonishing that I used to believe all this without the slightest suspicion…

Educated is a beautifully written and an extremely well constructed memoir.  There were many times as I read this book that I wanted to reassure Tara and give her a hug.  You cannot help but feel for her and root her on.  Tara Westover has enormous insight and wisdom for her age and she has come to the conclusions she has in order to live a life of her own.  She has outgrown her family, save for two siblings that also pursued an education.  Interestingly enough, all three of them received Ph.D. degrees while the four siblings left behind did not complete high school. In order for Tara to survive, she had to leave her past behind.

The past was a ghost, insubstantial, unaffecting. Only the future had weight.

THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN OCTOPUS by Ann Braden

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All I need is to know something—and I do. And maybe, just maybe, if I do this—and if I can rock it—all the other kids will have their minds blown, and it’ll be completely satisfying to watch. “Who would have guessed,” they’ll say, “that Zoey knew so much cool stuff? I had no idea! I thought I knew who she was, but clearly I didn’t at all.” Maybe Kaylee Vine would even stop holding her nose and switching seats on the bus to get away from me.

The Benefits of Being an Octopus is a treasure of a book —  I absolutely loved it! If I could give it six stars, I would! At its core, it is an inspiring story about finding oneself and empowerment.  It may be intended for teens and YA, but it will definitely resonate with adults. It’s an amazing debut novel and I cannot wait to read what Ann Braden writes next.

Zoey is a seventh grader who is working on her debate prep.  The assigned topic — what is the best animal and why.  For Zoey, the answer is the octopus and she knows many reasons why it surpasses all others.  In fact, she is very knowledgeable about the eight-legged creature and even identifies with them at times. 

Zoey is responsible for looking after her three younger siblings (ranging in age from infant to four years old) and it takes up a lot of her free time. She is not a great student and doesn’t really care about school. She never participates in class and as she explains, she isn’t the kind of kid that does homework. 

Besides being unsuccessful at school, Zoey is bullied by her classmates. She doesn’t fit in and doesn’t seem to care. She also feels unappreciated by her mother, who she sees as having markedly changed since they moved in with her boyfriend Lenny. The reader cannot help but feel for Zoey and the challenging circumstances of her life. But one day her life, as well as those around her, will change when her social studies teacher becomes involved.

Likening herself to an octopus is a psychological coping mechanism for Zoey. She clearly suffers from an inferiority complex, among other things, and feeling that she shares some characteristics of an octopus helps guide her and gives her a perceived edge over her classmates. An added bonus for the reader is that we learn some interesting facts about the octopus.

The chromatophores right under my octopus skin switch to camouflage. When I slide into the seat, I might as well be made of the same colors as the desk and the metal chair legs.

It’s like my octopus body has gotten trapped in a net. But there has to be an opening somewhere. If I can just stay calm and avoid getting tangled up …

In fact, identifying with the eight-legged mollusk gives Zoey a sense of confidence, hope and courage when she most needs it. She is able to deal with stressful situations by imagining the advantages she has as an octopus.

I can camouflage myself well enough to blend in with a desk. I just need to camouflage myself enough to blend in with them. I take a deep breath and extend my tentacles. 

I can still blend in with the eager beavers. I can still pretend I’m like them. Maybe after long enough, that magic wand of confidence will mistake me for them, and give me a bop on the head, too.

Could I really be like them? I mean, an octopus can change colors ten times in a matter of seconds, so all sorts of ridiculous things are possible.

Ann Braden does a remarkable job capturing the voice and temperament of a seventh grader.

I hate waking them up. It’s like you’ve finally won the lottery of peace and quiet and then you rip that winning ticket to shreds and dump a bucket of angry, screaming monkeys on your head.

Silas has the kind of freckles that make you want to connect the dots to form constellations and dragons and things.

I slip into the stall that has you’re a slut carved on the side. I used to like to look at it sideways and pretend that it says you’re a slug and that it was carved by a cockroach who was just trying to help his slug friend who was having some identity issues.

The Benefits of Being an Octopus explores many important and relevant topics - bullying, living day-to-day with poverty, emotional abuse, the gun debate and finding one’s voice (both literally and figuratively). Importantly, it shows how one person can make such a significant difference in a child’s life and its direction, in this case a teacher who cares. 

MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation — sounds like a great idea, right? Who wouldn’t love to take off a year to chill out and relax (assuming one is able to do so financially).  It is certainly a unique premise for a book, which I was eager to devour.  After reading it, I must confess that the story is not exactly what I expected. 

The narrator of A Year of Rest and Relaxation wants to sleep away the year by using all sorts of prescription drugs she is too readily able to get from a psychiatrist she selected from the yellow pages because she was the only one that answered her phone at 11pm. As bizarre as the premise of this book sounds, I have to admit, I loved it. Perhaps my background in psychology biased my reading experience — I don’t know.

Our narrator is obsessive-compulsive about sleep — she absolutely loves it!

Oh, sleep. Nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness.

I’d always loved sleeping. It was one thing my mother and I had enjoyed doing together when I was a child. She was not the type to sit and watch me draw or read me books or play games or go for walks in the park or bake brownies. We got along best when we were asleep.

She truly believes that if she sleeps continuously for a year, her neuroses and troublesome memories will vanish and life will begin anew for her.

I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then—that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is more of an in-depth character study than a story per se. We get to know the narrator, who interestingly enough is nameless, very well.  To say she is self-alienated is the understatement of the year. She is very self-absorbed and has a destructive relationship with her boyfriend Trevor that is on again and off again and on again, etc. We get glimpses inside her head and follow her thoughts, free associations and self-analysis. She is actually a tragic figure that doesn’t seem to want to work out her psychological issues but rather prefers to be in denial and deludes herself into thinking that sleep is a panacea.

Nothing seemed really real. Sleeping, waking, it all collided into one gray, monotonous plane ride through the clouds. I didn’t talk to myself in my head. There wasn’t much to say. This was how I knew the sleep was having an effect: I was growing less and less attached to life. If I kept going, I thought, I’d disappear completely, then reappear in some new form. This was my hope. This was the dream.

At times, the story is just so outlandish that it is amusing and/or outright laugh out loud funny.  

Dr. Tuttle,” I began, “I was wondering if you could prescribe something a little stronger for bedtime. When I’m tossing and turning at night, I get so frustrated. It’s like I’m in hell.”

“Hell? I can give you something for that,” she said, reaching for her prescription pad.

Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting.

The writing is very descriptive and smart.  The metaphors are clever and seamlessly integrated into the narrative. 

Caffeine was my exercise. It catalyzed my anxiety so that I could crash and sleep again.

I could picture my selfhood, my past, my psyche like a dump truck filled with trash. Sleep was the hydraulic piston that lifted the bed of the truck up, ready to dump everything out somewhere….

While the premise sounds like the book could become boring at times, I didn’t find that to be true at all.  My Year of Rest and Relaxation is well-written and captivating with a very unusual storyline. I am very interested to read more by Ottessa Moshfegh.

           

NIGHT OF MIRACLES by Elizabeth Berg

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Night of Miracles is a charming story about the inhabitants of a small town. While it is billed as a sequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv, it is a completely standalone book.  But reading them in order will give you a little bit more enjoyment when reading the second one, because of the additional backstory knowledge of a couple of characters. 

There are a lot more characters in Night of Miracles compared to The Story of Arthur Truluv which centered on three people. In fact, the beginning of Night of Miracles requires some patience on the reader’s part — the first 5 chapters, although they are short, revolve around different characters (Lucille, Iris, Abby/Jason, Tiny/Iris, and Monica) with a few tertiary character names as well. So don’t be surprised if you are a bit confused and have trouble keeping the characters straight — it will become clearer as you read more. 

The book is about how these individuals become interconnected as their stories unfold. Are these people extraordinary? Not really. But they are good-natured and kind — people you would like to get to know. They are coping with everyday issues and problems while dealing with others in a compassionate way. Their different circumstances include illness, a small business, losing weight, starting over after a divorce, dating, unrequited love and so on. By the time their story ends, each one will get their own small miracle.

The different characters come to realize different truths through their experiences with each other and the situations in their lives. There are bits of wisdom sprinkled through the pages on various topics including love, life, and kindness.

That is the gift of love, not only that you have somebody but that you are changed by somebody.

One good thing about someone really liking something you have is that you appreciate it yourself all over again.

But you can’t custom-order people’s kindnesses. People do what they can, they give what they have.

There are some amusing moments as well as clever writing. 

He takes the recommended small bites! which means that he cuts the sprouts in quarters. Looks like he’s going to have to add a microscope to his table setting.

They didn’t even eat together anymore, not breakfast, not lunch, not dinner. Oftentimes, they ate separate things, and Iris thought this was worse than separate beds. They were more than over. They were rotted.

Ms. Berg is a skilled writer who gives the reader worthy ideas to ponder:

Lately, she draws comfort from watching the second hand go smoothly around and around. Isn’t it funny that she, so enamored of the past, is now consoled by seeing time move relentlessly forward?

Funny how important those birds have become to her. But people need something to depend on. They need a qsomething to love.

And everybody’s job was to love life while you had it and never to take anything for granted. It was hard to remember to do that, but it was worth it to try.

Although I enjoyed Night of Miracles, I didn’t love it as much as The Story of Arthur Truluv.  Maybe the abundance of characters has something to do with it. The character of Arthur Truluv is unrivaled in Night of Miracles — he is truly unique.  Overall I think The Story of Arthur Truluv set a very high bar which would be extremely difficult to surpass.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

THE STORY OF ARTHUR TRULUV by Elizabeth Berg

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The Story of Arthur Truluv is an enchanting and delightful book that’s a joy to read. It is a story about an untraditional family and the love they share.

The first paragraph introduces us to Arthur:

In the six months since the November day that his wife, Nola, was buried, Arthur Moses has been having lunch with her every day. He rides the bus to the cemetery and when he gets there, he takes his sweet time walking over to her plot: she will be there no matter when he arrives. She will be there and be there and be there.

Arthur Moses is 85 years old and is a amiable person who readily opens his heart up to others. He has an unusual and rather unique view on aging: 

Arthur thinks that, above all, aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance.

One day during his daily visit to the cemetery he meets Maddy, a troubled teen who visits at lunchtime to escape the bullying she gets at school. Maddy lost her mother when she was 2 weeks old and feels that her father is indifferent towards her.  She is trying to find herself a place in the world and fill the emptiness she feels in her heart.

When Maddy learns about Arthur’s deceased wife Nola and Arthur’s devotion to her, Maddy gives him the nickname of Truluv. Their growing friendship is of mutual benefit as they are both alone. It is his relationship with Maddy that helps Arthur to remember what companionship is and helps him to enjoy living again:

Arthur realizes that if he were alone, it would be a grim wait. With the girl, it is an adventure. That’s what being with another does. He remembers now with something like a full-body flush, he remembers what it means to share something with someone, the particular alchemy that can light things up.

This is a story about three lonely people and how they come to save each other. Arthur and Maddy illustrate the mutual respect that is so often lacking between the young and the old. The third person of this trio is Lucille, who is also elderly.  She lives next door to Arthur and when she seems him on the street, invites him up to her porch, eager for the company.  Lucille confesses to Arthur that she feels useless and Arthur’s reply epitomizes his attitude towards life:

See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it, Lucille. I don’t feel useless. I feel lucky.

Somehow, this unlikely threesome become a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.  As their relationships develop, they come to genuinely care for and love each other. They become a family of sorts, which Maddy describes as: 

What is it that makes a family? Certainly no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.

All three of these characters are very well-developed and drive the story of this book.  I found myself rooting for Maddy and loving Arthur —  you just want to give each of them a big hug.  The story is heartwarming, engaging, well-written, and whimsical at times. 

It’s like I was living in a jar. With the lid on tight. And now I’m out and I never knew about all this air and all this light. You know? It’s like I’d never seen in color before, and now I do.”

Lately, she takes pictures of little things and blows them up big so that she can really see them. In poems, she does the opposite: big things get made small so that she can see them.

THE DREAM DAUGHTER by Diane Chamberlain

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II really liked The Dream Daughter, the first book I’ve read by Diane Chamberlain. This engaging story with its unique premise begins in1965 when our protagonist, Carly Sears is a physical therapist student. She is very close to graduation with her wedding one week later. 

The first paragraph drew me right in by piquing my curiosity:

No one wanted to work with the man in the wheelchair.  “There’s something strange about that guy,” one of my fellow students warned me in the hall outside the PT ward.  “If they try to assign you to him, say no.”

This man (Hunter Poole) has been uncooperative with everyone but when he spots Carly, he smiles at her and requests her for his physical therapist. Carly agrees and they make some progress with learning how to use crutches. But then a brand new Beatles song makes its debut on the radio and Hunter sings along.  He knows every word but the song has never been played before. Carly is suspicious but because he’s a Beatles fan, she wants him to meet her Beatlemaniac sister Patti. 

The next chapter opens five years later and Patti is married to Hunter and they have a one year old child. Carly has lost her husband in the Viet Nam war and her unborn baby has a fatal heart condition. She is devastated especially because this baby represents her last tie to Joe, her deceased husband. But Hunter has an idea of how she might be able to save her baby.  And Carly will stop at nothing to save her child.

Dream Daughter is a satisfying and suspenseful read with some good twists and turns that I did not see coming. I was never bored reading this book and found myself flipping the pages, anxious to know what would happen next. Chamberlain excels at setting the time period and detailing the settings as well as the current cultural experiences. The characters are well developed and seem like people I would know. You cannot help but root for Carly and her baby. At its core, Dream Daughter is a story about Faith — in oneself, one’s family, one’s destiny and both knowing and doing what is right. It deals with big decisions and selfish vs selfless love.  It is also about determination and the lengths a mother will go to for their child. I now want to read Diane Chamberlain’s other books.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.