Carson Wolf’s Reviews > Educated > Status Update

When Charles is at her house, she treats it like a game. Instead of getting help, she is just trying to cover it up. Tara treats it like a game, stating "Of course I'm ok, Shawn is so... FUNNY" (Westover 188). Tara believes she is doing something wrong, so she just tries to ignore it.

In the spot that we are supposed to be in in the book, I am blown away by how Shawn treats Tara. He totally abuses her in major ways, and she is terrified of him, but at the same time never asks for help. She could be going to the police, but because of her secretive childhood, I believe that she doesn't know this. She treats it like a game when she is in front of others and being abused. (con't)

She is totally oblivious to anything in the past. This is revealed when she knew nothing about WW2 in class, and also when she learns about slavery. When she looks at slides about them in class she states "I was still ignorant to be surprised" (Westover 179).

A big thing that has been brought up recently in the book has how Tara is totally clueless about racism and black history. This has revealed to me, once again how important an education actually is. I thought that education was important to get into college, but I had no idea how much it showed you history. What I mean by this is that without schooling, Tara has no idea what has happened in the world. (Cont')

I feel that this is interesting because it really shows that you need to be trained and work up to college because it's almost an impossible place to just start. This is why we have the education laws that we do.

A very big, reoccurring part of where I am in the book, is how difficult education is for Tara in college. She is really struggling, because up to that point she had never been to school. She is feeling hopeless and overwhelmed in almost every class that she is in. She feels out of place and even talks about how she "didn't belong, and couldn't be taught to belong" (Westover 164). (continued in next summary)

A big topic that I can ask my group about is do you think that the family in this book should get in trouble, or do you believe they are in the right.Because there are many parts in this book, not schooling, delivering babies without a license, etc. that makes me wonder that if the government knew what the family is doing, they would be arrested.So I could just really see if my group members believe she's morally ok.