Review: Educated

Educated by Tara Westover
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was great! I read it after seeing it on the Rooster list. Similar to The Glass Castle, it was a memoir about a woman who grew up under circumstances that we would consider negligent. However, what I liked most about this book was how Westover depicted her life in a way that, until she begins to break away from her (separatist, home-schooling, abusive) family, seems at worst odd. There are untreated injuries, siblings who run away, and canned goods stocked for Armageddon. Then as Westover comes to terms with her childhood, as a reader, I was more able to see how her upbringing was abusive and negligent, not quaint and odd.

Ultimately, Westover seeks education, and education wins. This was a great read.

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Review: The Rooster Bar

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

John Grisham's books are always a fun read. This one followed three friends graduating from a for-profit scammy law school with no real prospects for employment. They get together and figure out how to make money ... untraditionally. I thought the character development really stood out in this book - it was really interesting to learn about each character's back story and how they came to attend this law school. Then, how those backgrounds led each of them to have the skills necessary to pull off their plan.

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Review: The Half Brother

The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

WOW. This was quite an epic. Recommended by my Norwegian friend Stig, this book possessed me for months. It was about three generations of a family living in Oslo during and after WWII. Translated from the original Norwegian, it was written very subtly, with moments sometimes not hitting me until I was a few pages past the scene. The character development was really good, and the narrative as a whole was ... epic. Perhaps my only hesitation in a stronger recommendation was the length - I definitely got lost at points in the book, willing it to get to the next chapter.

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