Reviews for The education of Mary

The average rating for The education of Mary based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-09-12 00:00:00 Michael McCurdy I liked this book most of the way through. It kind of did a funny thing at the end when both of the main characters sort of had changes of heart and everything just sort of died. But becuase it is based on history I wouldn't be suprised if thats the way things really happened. It was fun to listen to.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-09-14 00:00:00 Tod Emery I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it ended up being more interesting than I thought it would be. There is even a little adventure and suspense! But on the other hand, the narrator, Mary, was not easy to like. She does get a lot of stuff thrown at her so I can't say she's wholly to blame, but the book ends with her acting on a rather bitter and vengeful note. It’s not so much what she did as the intent and malice that she did it with. Still, the story was very intriguing at parts. For me, the ending just made the whole thing feel unsatisfactory. That said, there are a lot of crazy and semi-crazy characters in this, so Mary emerges looking pretty good in comparison. In the author's note at the end of the book, Rinaldi says that she fictionalized the personalities and interactions of the girls at the school: "I found it difficult to believe that some twenty teenage girls remained silent, unbiased, unafraid, uninvolved, and submissive. These girls were human beings with the same emotions, needs, and potential of everyone else. So there, inside the school, I found my story." That sounds good on paper, but she kind of took it to the extreme. Many of the girls come across as slightly deranged, with a crazed martyr complex and desire to draw attention to their "cause" (a.k.a. themselves) through any means possible. I'm not sure I like the fact that she fictionally elaborated the stories of actual historical people, even if their real stories and personalities are not fully known (but maybe, as Rinaldi also says in the author's note, "taking liberties with minor characters in the historical text is what fiction writing is all about. [. . .] That is the job of the historical novelist."). But still, it's one thing to make up characters and place them in a historical setting, or take historical characters and expound on their personalities through research, and another to take a historical character and just reinvent them. Maybe that works in certain cases, but somehow it just felt disingenuous here. I also found it a bit hard to believe that people were actually gossiping about Mary and Stephen, when she was only thirteen—a mere child—and he was a grown man. But I guess people will gossip about just about anything. Also, I must have missed something, because I didn't understand why Miss Crandall opening the all-black girls' school was such a big deal, considering that references are made to Mary and her siblings previously attending a school with white children. Speaking of which, why didn't Miss Crandall just integrate the school—blacks and whites—instead of kicking the white girls out? It seemed like that was the root of at least some of the ill-will. I didn't hate this book, so my rating probably seems a little low. I would give it 2.5 stars if I could, but it doesn’t quite get a three star “I liked it” rating.