The Teacher by Frieda McFadden

Review: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

If you want a more messed up version of The Summer I Turned Pretty, then this book is for you.  It tells the story of Eve Bennett, a high school math teacher and her student, Addie Severson, a girl caught in the middle of a sexual harassment scandal's aftermath, as well as Nate Bennett, Eve's husband who works as an english teacher at the same school.  They are all lying about their lives and uncovering them would mean uncovering a whole life time of crimes, deception, lust.  (If you want full spoilers, the summary is at the bottom)

This book is at breakneck speed, making it an easy read.  You switch perspectives but it moves the story along really fast.  The characters are straight to the point, and the story is dramatic, making it an easy book to pick up and continue.  It was so dramatic, that as gross as it was, it kept the story interesting and had me hooked.

HOWEVER, I will say, the content in this book is really gross.  It's a lot of pedophilia that feels almost idolized? in a way.  As if we're supposed to relate to a 15 year old girl who is convinced that her 40 year old teacher is her soulmate.  The plot twist at the end also didn't make sense.  Eve can't really bash her husband for sleeping with Addie while sleeping with Addie's best friend.  It's almost hypocritical.  I say almost because at least the age gap is smaller.  Overall, this book just has a lot of 15 year olds hooking up with adults and it just felt really gross to read it.

All I can say is, at least it was an interesting book.  If it was boring AND full of pedophilia?  That would be zero stars.  But since Freida McFadden is good at writing stories where the story is good enough that you kind of have to ignore the icky bits, I'll give it 3 stars.

Summary (Spoilers Ahead!)

Eve Bennett was just another high school math teacher: stern, rational, and, skinny with brown hair and eyes.  She seemed like a glooming shadow compared to her husband, Nate: a charming, handsome, and passionate english teacher.  They couldn't be more different.  While they used to compliment eachother, recently their differences seem to be driving them apart.  They're distant from eachother, rarely show affection, and argue.  Their only relief from eachother comes from the school that they both teach in.  However, the new school year is about to lead to a deadly affair.

They both begin teaching Addie Severson, a fifteen year old girl who is ostracized for supposedly getting a teacher fired for sexual harassment.  While Eve treats her like any other student, Nate finds something special in her.  She has a wicked talent for poetry.  Her emotions about her abusive home life conjure dark tales, reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's work.  He begins to spend more time with Addie, falling deeper in love every time.  They soon become intimate partners and (jokingly) devise a plan to get rid of Eve.  Until one day, Eve catches her husband making out with Addie.  She captures the evidence and orders her husband to leave before she exposes his behavior to the police.  After he complies, she decides to confront Addie at her (Eve's) house and let her know that she is being taken advantage of.  

However, when she comes over for a talk, Addie gets overwhelmed and knocks her out with a frying pan.  When Nate arrives, answering to her call for help, he orders her to get supplies to hide her body.  Unbeknownst to her, Eve wakes up but is then strangled to death by Nate.  At midnight, the pair drive Eve's body to an abandoned pumpkin patch to bury her.  However, before long, Nate abandons Addie and calls the police on her.  As the police investigate, Addie's bully, Kenzie, confides in her that she was taken advantage of by Nate when she was fourteen years old, inspiring Addie to defy Nate's command: "Deny Everything".  Together, they confess everything, from the affair, to the manslaughter.  With this, Nate's fate is sealed and he knows it.  As he begins to run away, he begins to experience strange things.  Events that seemed to be inspired by his favorite poem, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.  Reminders of his crimes being dropped anonymously, haunting his life and dreams, evidence, tapping, everything to make him go insane.  Until, he arrives at the pumpkin patch again, just to confirm that his wife is really dead.  She isn't in the grave.  Suddenly, he is hit with a rock.  Eve.  She and her (affair) partner, Jay, had tormented him.  Nate begins to apologize but it's too late.  Eve and Jay bury him alive and the case is closed.

FURTHER SPOILERS/PLOT TWISTS

• Nate was Eve's high school teacher, and they began hooking up when Eve was fourteen
• Eve's cheating partner was Addie's best friend, Hudson
• The teacher fired for sexual harassment, Art Tuttle, never actually did anything.  They were both at the wrong place at the wrong time
• Nate was hooking up with other students
• Addie was the one responsible for her alcoholic + abusive father's death

Joan Miró art exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

    In late April, the newspaper club that I'm a part of, visited the Joan Miró art exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. 

    The exhibition followed his journey to discover his art style, detailing the personal and social events that inspired each era of his art.  However, his greatest inspiration was his mind.  He believed that everyone was capable of unlimited creativity but that society limits us to a set standard of what ‘good art’ is.  He believed that if we learn to let go of these standards we will reach a transcendental level of creativity.

    Joan Miró (1893-1983) is a Spanish artist who depicted abstract art with a surrealist twist. He sought to unlock his full potential of creativity and artistic expression by accessing his unconscious and subconscious mind. To free his mind, Miró explored his art style from a young age; dabbling in realism and landscapes before eventually settling on his iconic art style.  He played with fun colors and simple shapes, letting his inner child go wild.  He painted dreams he had, not in an intricate, aesthetic way, but in the raw state that he saw them in: simple and vibrant with a vague background.  By painting his subconscious, he created a unique kind of beauty that could only be seen by those who paid attention to the simple and mundane things in life.

    As he entered his adult years, there was a period of darkness where his art used minimal or dark colors. During World War II, he painted trapped creatures and creatures in pain, presumably depicting the horror the Nazis were capable of. During the Spanish Civil War when he was exiled, he painted his most famous collection: Constellations. He depicted the night sky that he saw before he slept, vulnerable to the danger outside and isolated. The paintings depicted a sense of freedom and loneliness.

    As he aged, his art became simpler with less details and more empty spaces on the canvas.  After the horrible socioeconomic conditions he was under during his Constellations collection, it was beautiful to see how much freedom and simplicity he achieved in his later years.  

    Miró believed that gaining freedom meant gaining simplicity, and I believe that that was what makes his art so beautiful.   His idea of gaining freedom and simplicity made him an open minded person, giving him the ability to find the beauty in the simple things that go unnoticed.  

    While we are all trained to perform in the way our parents and teachers want, I believe that we need to start creating art for ourselves.  Express yourself in the way you see yourself.  Let your imagination run wild and be free.