Helen Le’s Reviews > Educated > Status Update

“how do you thank a brother who refused to let you go, who seized your hand and wrenched you upward, just as you had decided to stop kicking and sink?” YES TYLEEERRR

“… to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind… if i yielded now, i would lose more than an argument. i would lose custody of my own mind… what my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon; it was me.”

“what was needed was a revolution, a reversal of the ancient, brittle roles we’d been playing out since my childhood. what was needed— what emily needed— was a woman emancipated from pretense, a woman who could show herself to be a man. voice an opinion. take action in scorn of deference. a father.”
chilling ref to her previous thoughts on mother/fatherhood & her idea of their roles in the family dynamic

“… its not affecting me, that was its effect.” it’s crazy bc shawn is rarely mentioned until these chapters and we get these earlier memories where he’s the big brother that’s dependable and looks out for her. sure, he has his flaws— he fights & treats women like shit but it’s fine bc he still treats tara well right? all these thoughts are dashed as she grows older and experiences the very same abuse

“‘nobody plays stupid like my mother.’” it’s sad to see how ignorance was a point of pride for her younger self.