Educated: how to educate yourself beyond schools

(This is my first impression about Educated that I chose to write in English. On the last part of this post, I will talk about my next impression that wrote in Indonesian. So, here we go:) 

Life might be hard, and some of them could be derived from what we might call it: privilege. Thus, can comes in several forms, as our parents (socio-economical's status to any other identities that involved) until what comes to us as chances and self-will.

Tara Westover tells us through her "Educated" book how she struggled to reach education while she did not even have any chance. By chance, I mean, her father is a hardliner religious believer and also a govt apathetic that drives his children's life pathways. He was about to plot their life which, unfortunately, made bad decisions for his children.

For me, it's easier to imagine Tara's life as an anti-vaxxer daughter. Her dad never sends Tara and her brothers to school because for him, going to school means send yourself to the devil. He also did not register some of his kids by made birth certificates that cause so many difficulties. (Living in a country that provides you health care, education services and all are actually beneficial unless you don't follow govt rules and bureaucracy.)

When you read the title, you might think something like a memoir of someone to get educated through a hard life. Well, that's not wrong but also not valid either. (That's why you should read it.) What happened to her was that she had to fight harder because of her dad. He is not only abusive to his children, but also to his wife--Tara's mother.

After her mother could earn some money, she changed a lot. She lifts herself in the family, has her own voice and took decisions on her own. This made some improvements to Tara and her brother's life somehow.

Well, I never enjoy memoirs before. Or biography or anything in between. But Tara delivered the story quite good. As Bill Gate's said: it's like it wasn't written by someone who never attended school.

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(Oke, cukup. Nah sekarang tentang kesan gue berikutnya setelah beberapa kali mencoba menyelesaikan buku ini. Ditulis dalam bahasa indonesia:)

Gue mencoba selesaikan buku ini dua kali dan gagal. Maksudnya dua kali, adalah, pertama udah nyerah trus tutup buku. Lalu masih penasaran dan kasih kesempatan lagi--yang berujung gagal juga. Jadi, kali ini beneran nyerah.

 Kok bisa nyerah? Padahal sebelumnya bilang ini buku bagus.

Sebab indikator "bagus" (dan segala kata sifat lainnya) itu dinamis. Gue memulai baca dengan indikator "bagus", yang mana makin bertambah halamannya, malah makin sulit dan berat untuk menuju halaman selanjutnya.

Beberapa hal yang bikin gue merasa "berat":

1. Slow-paced. Banget. Anjir, engga ngerti gue kenapa seolah-olah Tara harus menuliskan hampir seluruh peristiwa di hidupnya untuk dibukukan. Yah, ini bisa sarkas, bisa engga.

2. Karena lamban itu tadi, keseluruhan cerita jadi membosankan (banget!).

3. Setelah percobaan kedua dan baca ulasan orang-orang di Goodreads, gue paham kenapa gue ngerasa sulit mengkhatamkan buku ini. Intinya, gue gak sendirian.

4. Personal matters. Gue ngerasa Tara mungkin punya persoalan yang cukup kompleks setidaknya salama proses nulis buku itu. (Bahkan, sampe ada yang komen di Goodreads: is it fiction? LOL.) Rumornya, Abangnya Tara sampe bikin ulasan super panjang di amazon soal hal-hal kenapa ingatan Tara dianggap gak cukup mumpuni. Ah, entahlah ya.

Oke. Demikian dari gue. Di Goodreads gue cuma ngasih dua bintang karena gak sanggup gue selesain itu. Mau kasih satu bintang, kan gue udah baca hampir separi buku. Sementara tiga bintang, kok rasanya gak impresif banget. Dua bintang gue rasa cukuplah.

Jadi, sila coba dibaca, ya. Lalu bikin ulasan tandingan (aposeee).[]