“To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s.”
Educated is a memoir about the struggle for self-discovery. Tara was raised in a survivalist family who didn't believe in the establishment including the government, health and education system. She never went to school nor hospital until she turned 17. Tara educated herself and she taught herself enough to get into Brigham Young University. Her upbringing coming from a particularly unusual family brought her to see education as a great mechanism of self-invention.
“Often adults said to me, “You’re so strong, you’re so brave.” But I didn’t want to be strong, I didn’t want to be brave. I wanted a fresh, fluffy brain, one that was not tormented by wars and fear"
Clementine was born in a privileged middle-class Rwandan family until the Rwandan genocide happened when she was 6. The genocide pushed Clementine and Claire, her sister, to seek safety from other countries. Wandering through 9 African countries for 6 years, embracing the worst thing you could imagine as a state-less person, Clementine was finally granted asylum in the US and was able to start fresh. But the horror didn't stop there. Clementine needs to integrate and adapt to the new society while the trauma she felt as a refugee still haunts her. The Girl Who Smiled Beads is a powerful story about resilience and survival and how Clementine reconciles all the horrendous times.
by Hyeonseo Lee with David John
“I hope you remember that if you encounter an obstacle on the road, don’t think of it as an obstacle at all… think of it as a challenge to find a new path on the road less traveled.”
Growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee didn't know what happened outside her country nor that she lived in a very secretive and totalitarian regime. Her journey began when she was 17. She crossed the Yalu River to escape to China. Her main intention was to only visit her uncle and aunt, yet it brought her to see a new world and she wasn't able to go back to North Korea. She was trapped in a foreign land with no other choices than keep living while trying to find a way to reunite with her family. The Girl with Seven Names is a memoir that shows freedom always comes with a price. Hyeonseo Lee depicted the struggle of North Korean defectors to get away from getting patriated and finding a way to finally own their free life.
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