Title: An Uncommon Education
Review:
Naomi
Fienstein is a young woman severely troubled by life. A disinterested mother and a secretive father
beset with ill health. When her father
has a heart attack right in front of her she decides that she can fix
this. She will dedicate her life to medicine,
specifically to the heart. But her
problems mount at school as she is without friends, a social outcast who is
picked on. Her first love, the neighbor
boy suddenly moves away and she is left alone.
She deals with the loneliness by literally running away from it; taking
to the streets to run. Eventually life
will be better when she gets to college, her problems left behind.
When
meeting her freshman roommate her father comments how she is Naomi from down
the street, symbolically demonstrating that for all her running, all her
planning she has yet to travel very far.
Because at the end of the day her life is still with her. Her dad does not open up about his past, her
mother does not magically change into a caring person, and she still spends most
of her time at the library.
An
Uncommon Education is a wonderful coming of age story. It shows a young woman who is forced to see
herself for who she really is, and to stop letting others define her. Be that her father, her peers, or the mentors
in her life. The turning point in her
life is her inclusion into Wellesley’s oldest college group the Shakes. A college club (but definitely not a
sorority) dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare. She is immediately pressed into playing
Laertes in Hamlet. Much like her,
Laertes is a child who acts against his own interests when he will not look at
the whole picture, the truth of the situation.
He continues down the path created by his father and King Claudius until
ultimately all is lost.
Fortunately
Naomi springs to life from this role, finally making true friends, making an
ever so small connection with her father, and finally experiencing life on its
own terms. An Uncommon Education is a
fantastic look at growing up, a child breaking free of their own limitations
and finding happiness in their situation.
Befriending her problems and turning them into opportunities.
Publisher: Published May 1st 2012 by Harper
Copyright: 2012
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780062110961
Quick Review: 4 1/2 Stars out of 5.
Why I read it: It
was recommended for people who loved Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Curtis
Sittenfeld’s Prep, and Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics; all
books I have enjoyed.
Where Did I Read the Book:
Sent by the publisher
for review.
Synopsis: A young woman tries to
save three people she loves in this elegant and remarkably insightful
coming-of-age debut.
Afraid of losing her parents at a young age—her father with
his weak heart, her deeply depressed mother—Naomi Feinstein prepared
single-mindedly for a prestigious future as a doctor. An outcast at school,
Naomi loses herself in books, and daydreams of Wellesley College. But when
Teddy, her confidant and only friend, abruptly departs from her life, it's the
first devastating loss from which Naomi is not sure she can ever recover, even
after her long-awaited acceptance letter to Wellesley arrives.
Naomi soon learns that college isn't the bastion of
solidarity and security she had imagined. Amid hundreds of other young women, she
is consumed by loneliness—until the day she sees a girl fall into the freezing
waters of a lake.
The event marks Naomi's introduction to Wellesley's oldest
honor society, the mysterious Shakespeare Society, defined by secret rituals
and filled with unconventional, passionate students. Naomi finally begins to
detach from the past and so much of what defines her, immersing herself in this
exciting and liberating new world and learning the value of friendship. But her
happiness is soon compromised by a scandal that brings irrevocable
consequences. Naomi has always tried to save the ones she loves, but part of
growing up is learning that sometimes saving others is a matter of saving
yourself.
An Uncommon Education is a compelling portrait of a quest
for greatness and the grace of human limitations. Poignant and wise, it
artfully captures the complicated ties of family, the bittersweet inevitability
of loss, and the importance of learning to let go.
Author Biography: Elizabeth Percer's poetry has been published widely, and she
has been twice honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation and
nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. She received a B.A. in English
from Wellesley, a Ph.D. in arts education from Stanford University, and
completed a postdoctoral fellowship for the National Writing Project at
Berkeley. Percer's academic publications on art, the education of the
imagination, and writing have been published and presented internationally. She
lives in California. Her webstie is www.elizabethpercer.com.
I love the idea of acting in Hamlet propelling Naomi into a better life!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being on the tour.
It's really cool to read about someone finding their sense of self through literature.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you loved the book!