Readers United Book Reviews | Small Fry and Educated

Caroline Rispoli '20 reviews two incredibly crafted memoirs, Small Fry and Educated

Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

Reviewed by Caroline Rispoli ’20

Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ memoir, Small Fry, introduces to the world the truth about technology legend and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, as she details their relationship from child to adulthood. Brennan-Jobs, recounting her double life split between the homes of her mother and father, brings to light the fact that regardless of Steve’s reputation as an internationally recognized genius, he lacked the necessary intelligence, or rather what appears to most as common sense, to appropriately pursue fatherhood. 

Rarely present in Lisa’s early life, Steve later emerges as a more “involved” fatherly figure, although simultaneously unpredictable, critical, and cold in his attitude toward Lisa. As her relationship with her mother is strained during the beginning of high school, Steve demands Lisa move in with him, wife Laurene, and son Reed. Lisa is met with a cold bedroom in which Steve refuses to fix the heating, rejection from family photos, and Steve’s insistence that his first computer, the Lisa, has no relation to his daughter. 

Brennan-Jobs masterfully depicts her life between her parents and the psychological repercussions evident into adulthood, while the memoir unfolds much like a puzzle, in which the reader takes on the same confused role as a young Lisa attempting to understand Steve’s erratic behavior and actions. Lisa’s vivid memory allows for an unparalleled openness regarding Steve’s distinct idiosyncrasies, and a level of truth not often present in memoirs today. 

Verdict: A disturbing, passionate, and mesmerizing recounting, Small Fry, should be read by any and all, Apple fanatic or not, as an insightful analysis into the mind of Steve Jobs through the eyes of his first born daughter. 

Educated by Tara Westover

Reviewed by Caroline Rispoli ’20

School to most may seem like a no-brainer, but Tara Westover didn’t enter a classroom until she was seventeen years old. Born into a devout Mormon family living in the mountain’s of Idaho, Tara’s childhood was characterized by assisting her mother as both midwife and healer, experiencing the often dangerous manual labor in her father’s junkyard, and enduring the constant physical and verbal abuse of her older brother Shawn. It is her family’s distrust of the government, which barred her from schooling and medical care, combined with the psychologically and physically detrimental actions of her brother Shawn, that convinces Tara to find a way out. 

In her disturbing, heartbreaking, and inspiring memoir, Westover details her journey through self education. She studies to gain a score of 28 on the ACT, moves on to attend Brigham Young University, and eventually attends both Cambridge, where she earns her PhD, and Harvard, where she is a visiting fellow. In the midst of her immense success, or rather the evil that has overtaken her in the eyes of her parents, Tara is practically disowned and challenged when she comes forward regarding her brother’s years of abuse. 

Verdict: Tara Westover has written a memoir that reveals the power of an education: the opportunity to gain a new perspective through an understanding of the world around you, and the power to change one’s life.