Kendall Hailey

This book reads like a teenagers diary and for that and most of the content I was disappointed. What was she teaching herself? I can't help but wonder if her book was published because of 1. who her parents were at the time, because what has she done since then? and 2. all the name dropping she did in the book of who they were friends were. People who would have been termed has-beens. (a term of the time and the area)
She did come across as a typical spoiled child of certain areas in L.A., jetsetting to Paris, or England for summer vacation.
There were very few nuggets of good writing in the book that I found myself reading it just to finish it. One such nugget: pg262 I am writing about education and this is the first time I have mentioned the SAT's, which shows you exactly how much I think they have to do iwth education. However, they have too much to do with...college. (she was talking about her crush's ordeal with the SAT's).
This book would be good for teens.… (more)

This was a reread of a book I read when it was first published. Hailey was in her early 20s, I was in my late 30s, but it spoke to me because I feel like an autodidact in spite of having spent years in school. For me, school was a long series of nice suggestions on what I wanted to explore next. Making good grades wasn't generally a problem for me unless I was bored stupid, which happened maybe three times in my grade and high school years. I'd go off and do my thing, and stop paying any attention to my schoolwork, fail a bunch of stuff, get a stern talking-to and go back to making at least a minimal effort. Most of my friends fit into this category to some degree or other. Some did well in school and enjoyed it, some tolerated it, but all of us seem to learn best on our own.

Hailey's decision to leave school early was made with the support of her parents, a novelist mother and a playwright father. It certainly wasn't my situation, and when I first read the book, I envied her that. I followed her attempts to educate herself with glee, enjoyed her insights, and made notes about books I really really should be reading as well. (Hailey did some heavy classical lit reading.)

This time around, I saw her from a greater distance, separated by 30 years from my younger self, I found I was impatient with her judgements, the way she flitted from one career dream to the next, and the thread of her unrequited love for a family friend. I kept having to say, "Tracy, she's a kid, lighten up!" That rational voice was quite correct. She was a kid, a smart, sassy one, who was so passionate about the world that she wanted to experience it via every art she could think of. She was a kid so much of the time she was certain she knew how things had to work. She was a kid, so of course she was in love.

I don't know what I was expecting.

But when I did lighten up, I found the same delight in her progress that I had nearly 30 years earlier. I enjoyed her thoughts and observations on what she was reading, her efforts to write novels and plays, become an actress and photographer, and to get Matthew to declare his love for her. She counts their kisses! Yes, she has it bad, and occasionally she'll step back and think, "What am I doing?" But her resolutions don't last.

Hailey writes so winningly, not only about her self-education, but of her family, that I felt I'd come to know them all. Father Oliver's struggle with Parkinson's, uncle Tom's eccentricities, mother Elizabeth's process as a novelist, and Nanny's and sister Brooke's hilarious weirdness. They're the heart of Hailey's book, even more than the path she's choosing to walk. This time around I feared for her because, having lost people I adored, I knew how hurt she was going to be when the same happened to her.

I'm glad I chose to revisit this book though I doubt I will again, unless I live another 30 years, and consider it an anniversary of sorts. Revisiting books you loved when you were younger can be dodgy. This one held up, thank goodness. If you love the idea of self-directed education, if you like smart young women with a bit of sass on them, this book may well appeal to you.… (more)