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Title: The Education of Bet Author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted Publisher: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 978-0547223087 |
May Contain Spoilers
From Amazon:
When Will and Bet were four, tragic circumstances brought them to the same house, to be raised by a wealthy gentleman as brother and sister. Now sixteen, they’ve both enjoyed a privileged upbringing thus far. But not all is well in their household. Because she’s a girl, Bet’s world is contained within the walls of their grand home, her education limited to the rudiments of reading, writing, arithmetic, and sewing. Will’s world is much larger. He is allowed—forced, in his case—to go to school. Neither is happy.
So Bet comes up with a plan and persuades Will to give it a try: They’ll switch places. She’ll go to school as Will. Will can live as he chooses. But once Bet gets to school, she soon realizes living as a boy is going to be much more difficult than she imagined.
After finishing The Education of Bet, I found myself so thankful that I didn’t grow up in nineteenth-century England. Ugh! What torture that would have been! Like Bet, I would have longed for more out of life than waiting on the men hand and foot. Bet proves herself to be a very clever young woman, who will risk anything to have the one thing denied her; an education.
Though I found parts of the plot highly improbable, I donned my rose-colored blinkers and chose to just roll with story developments without questioning most of them. While I still have a problem with Bet sharing a dorm room with a testosterone riddled teenaged guy, I will just compare this to similar rooming arrangements in several manga series I have enjoyed, including Hana Kimi. What is fiction without the suspension of disbelief, anyway?
Bet is beside herself with frustration. She wants to go to school, but she can’t because she’s a girl. Her close friend, Will, wants to be a soldier, but he can’t. Why? He has to go to school. Their elderly guardian is aghast that Will is constantly tossed out of the finest boarding schools in England, and he is determined that the lad will be educated. Or he’s going to die trying! Sounds like the perfect setup for a little gender bending, huh?
Bet is such a cool character. She is overcome by a furious desire to learn. To read. To understand the world around her. She gnashes her teeth in frustration when she is confined to the house and denied the knowledge she seeks. Bet leads very complicated life, and that’s before the idea of swapping places with Will ever entered her mind. The orphaned child of a servant, she doesn’t know who her father is, and only her guardian’s charity has kept a roof over her head. There is a very confusing place for her in the household; she’s not quite a servant, but she’s not part of the family, either. Class distinctions are blurred, but they still exist. Bet will never belong in either world.
Once she gets to school, she is in for a shock. The learning environment is nothing like she expected, and trying to fit in with a bunch of rough and tumble young men is much more challenging than she thought. There’s the bullying, and the taunting, and the fear of never being able to fit in here, either. Even when she thinks she’s made a friend, they turn around and betray her. I don’t think she wanted an education in interpersonal relationships, but this is first and foremost what Bet receives.
Her daily struggle to follow her dreams, no matter the cost, kept me glued to the book. It did start a bit slowly, but once she arrives at school, it was difficult to put down. Bet finds help in unexpected places, which helps to fuel her unfaltering drive to achieve her goals. She even finds herself falling in love with a classmate, and fights to keep her growing attraction to him her deepest, darkest secret.
With its fun characters and determined heroine, The Education of Bet is a satisfying, though unlikely, read. It was refreshing reading about a boarding school that wasn’t filled to the rafters with a bunch of vampires, witches, and werewolves. Non-magical kids can be interesting, too!
Grade: B+
Review copy purchased from Amazon
Kiersten White’s Paranormalcy is the talk of the town. Take a look at that gorgeous cover, and you’ll know why. The book hit stores on Tuesday, so it will only be a few more days before my copy arrives from Amazon (I hope!). I am dying to see if the book lives up to all of the hype, so I am really, really antsy to my hands on it. To help keep my patience in check, Kiersten White graciously agreed to drop by the virtual offices to answer a few questions. 
What’s the most gratifying aspect of having your book published?
How can it be Teaser Tuesday again?? For a full description of what it is, check the bottom of this post. .jpg)
