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nmorin's review against another edition
4.0
First half was challenging to get through but I ended up really enjoying this and the second half especially. Love a novel set in academia and about bad people making bad choices (that you still sort of like them in despite of!). What was very impressive I think was that Martha was written in a way that made me believe in her mystique/coolness, which I think is hard to achieve!
rachel_smrt's review against another edition
3.0
This tale of infatuation and heartbreak is INTENSE, but mostly just because remembering what it's like to be 21 and in love is something that breaks my old-person synapses.
blarn6102336's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
“this was too much to allow her to tell me, when her mouth at that moment was so crucial to my survival that i fell onto it as if drowning, and determined to drain her last breath, even if this consigned her to drowning as well— she might not have been able to handle me if my aggression had not been as frantic and disorganized as hers was efficient. once again i was wringing the front of her shirt— my hands were abruptly afraid of her skin, so that i wanted to crush her to me without having to touch her; i would have liked a single rope to bind us together, with tightly stacked coils, so that we formed a sort of siamese mummy within which our bodies got mashed into one..” (76)
riotsquirrrl's review against another edition
3.0
If there was an exact opposite to "Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl," this book would be it, despite being a book about people having gay sex in the early 1990's. This book was labeled as erotica i my library's Overdrive, but I found this to be the exact opposite of sexy.
Both books make sly references to Academia, especially modern theory, and I think that this book works best at the beginning when it is deliberately skewering the seriousness with which academics take the subject matter. Versus in "Paul," the references seem...playful and enjoyable for their own unselfconscious sakes. I admit that I stuck with this book because it definitely felt like watching a slow-motion car crash. It's like reading drama on the internet where you don't know any of the people so you don't feel bad in watching it al burn down because there's nothing to clean up. The problem is: that's only really during about the first third of the book. The main purpose of the second third is to complicate the narrative established by Regina and her lover, Martha. Really that entire section dragged on for far too long when we knew the train was running out of tracks. The third section? I feel like that's the section that Choi really wanted to tell, but needed to include the first 2/3 to illustrate all the back story. I also really liked the character of Lawrence and was sad that he got abandoned by the narrator (again) as soon as he proved to no longer be convenient and useful. But then again he seemed like the most well-adjusted of the characters so why would hot mess Regina want to keep in touch with him?
The ending is supposed to be feel-good I guess? But I'm left with feeling that Regina is still just as impulsive and obsessive 14 years later and I'm not at all confident that she has stopped being that person.
This book is also decidedly not queer, especially when put in juxtaposition with "Paul..." Sure, there's a bunch of woman-on-woman sex and drama, but Regina just wants such...hetero things and she wants a kind of idyllic middle-class normalcy with Martha. Combined with Choi's depiction of another character's asexual relationship as being weird and the result of trauma, and this book feels more like shoehorning queerness into genteel shapes rather than allowing the queerness to help open up possibilities for being beyond the standard paradigm.
Both books make sly references to Academia, especially modern theory, and I think that this book works best at the beginning when it is deliberately skewering the seriousness with which academics take the subject matter. Versus in "Paul," the references seem...playful and enjoyable for their own unselfconscious sakes. I admit that I stuck with this book because it definitely felt like watching a slow-motion car crash. It's like reading drama on the internet where you don't know any of the people so you don't feel bad in watching it al burn down because there's nothing to clean up. The problem is: that's only really during about the first third of the book. The main purpose of the second third is to complicate the narrative established by Regina and her lover, Martha. Really that entire section dragged on for far too long when we knew the train was running out of tracks. The third section? I feel like that's the section that Choi really wanted to tell, but needed to include the first 2/3 to illustrate all the back story. I also really liked the character of Lawrence and was sad that he got abandoned by the narrator (again) as soon as he proved to no longer be convenient and useful. But then again he seemed like the most well-adjusted of the characters so why would hot mess Regina want to keep in touch with him?
The ending is supposed to be feel-good I guess? But I'm left with feeling that Regina is still just as impulsive and obsessive 14 years later and I'm not at all confident that she has stopped being that person.
This book is also decidedly not queer, especially when put in juxtaposition with "Paul..." Sure, there's a bunch of woman-on-woman sex and drama, but Regina just wants such...hetero things and she wants a kind of idyllic middle-class normalcy with Martha. Combined with Choi's depiction of another character's asexual relationship as being weird and the result of trauma, and this book feels more like shoehorning queerness into genteel shapes rather than allowing the queerness to help open up possibilities for being beyond the standard paradigm.
aleffert's review against another edition
5.0
I thought this was terrific. At first it is making noises about being a terrible academic novel about an older professor, but it turns into the very different and unexpected direction of an academic novel about an older professor but from a very very different angle that was much more interesting. The ultimate theme I think is maturity and the differences it creates in us.
At every age, after the point at which I was capable of comprehending the thought, I have felt like I was basically as mature as I was going to get. But of course that's wrong and you just can't see it. And it's so much worse when love is involved.
The title, I think, is wrong though. The actual education is elided. The experience is not the education itself, the education is the maturity, the distance, the further experiences that contextualize and all of that happens offscreen.
At every age, after the point at which I was capable of comprehending the thought, I have felt like I was basically as mature as I was going to get. But of course that's wrong and you just can't see it. And it's so much worse when love is involved.
The title, I think, is wrong though. The actual education is elided. The experience is not the education itself, the education is the maturity, the distance, the further experiences that contextualize and all of that happens offscreen.
dianametzger's review against another edition
4.0
Started as a bit of a slog with some moments that seem rushed or muddled but found its footing in the middle and by the end, when Regina the main character goes from her early 20s to her mid 30s and a mother, Choi hits on some aspects of memory of youthful times in a way that felt so shockingly true and so relevant to me and the book ended in a really lovely fashion. Getting through the murky beginning is worth it to get to the last half or 1/3rd of the novel.
jane_wednesday's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
realityczar's review against another edition
5.0
My Education is an extraordinarily well-written portrayal of first love run aground on the rocks of reality, of how we let our emotions drive us to something approaching ruin, and of how duty and devotion intertwine. It’s also got some pretty fiery scenes of lust and passion that I found pretty convincingly wrought.
I know some readers have found it boring—I don’t get that, but to each their own. The writing is finely honed and attains breathtaking beauty with regularity. The characterizations are a little skimpy in places, but round out as the story moves along. I wonder a little bit about the structure, the two sections separated by time, and a little bit about the neatness of everything in the second part: grudges unheld, ruin generally avoided, hope abounding. But I was happy for these characters I’d come to appreciate, and the writing never lacked sophistication and wit.
Loved it.
I know some readers have found it boring—I don’t get that, but to each their own. The writing is finely honed and attains breathtaking beauty with regularity. The characterizations are a little skimpy in places, but round out as the story moves along. I wonder a little bit about the structure, the two sections separated by time, and a little bit about the neatness of everything in the second part: grudges unheld, ruin generally avoided, hope abounding. But I was happy for these characters I’d come to appreciate, and the writing never lacked sophistication and wit.
Loved it.
martaaraqui's review against another edition
4.0
3.5/5
Uno de mis géneros favoritos dentro de la novela es la novela de campus; esta, sin embargo, no es una novela de campus al uso. La historia de Regina Gottlieb avanza dando tumbos y giros inesperados, desde que conoce al profesor Brodeur hasta que se encuentra con quien realmente cambiará su vida: la mujer del profesor. El amor obsesivo y pasional, que eclipsa todo lo demás, la va destruyendo poco a poco. Me gusta cómo Choi maneja a los personajes, me gusta que estén llenos de defectos porque me resultan mucho más creíbles, incluso cuando sus acciones me indignan o me sorprenden. La autora no los juzga, parece que simplemente los deje hacer. Esa destrucción lenta pero sin pausa atrapa al lector, como ver un accidente a cámara lenta: no he podido dejar de leer hasta el final.
Uno de mis géneros favoritos dentro de la novela es la novela de campus; esta, sin embargo, no es una novela de campus al uso. La historia de Regina Gottlieb avanza dando tumbos y giros inesperados, desde que conoce al profesor Brodeur hasta que se encuentra con quien realmente cambiará su vida: la mujer del profesor. El amor obsesivo y pasional, que eclipsa todo lo demás, la va destruyendo poco a poco. Me gusta cómo Choi maneja a los personajes, me gusta que estén llenos de defectos porque me resultan mucho más creíbles, incluso cuando sus acciones me indignan o me sorprenden. La autora no los juzga, parece que simplemente los deje hacer. Esa destrucción lenta pero sin pausa atrapa al lector, como ver un accidente a cámara lenta: no he podido dejar de leer hasta el final.