Tassie's

Further, the eventually revealed backstory explaining their situation, including their desire to adopt, is so astonishingly implausible that whatever resonance Tassie's experience with them might have is completely lost.

A Sad Decline 2010

Further, the eventually revealed backstory explaining their situation, including their desire to adopt, is so astonishingly implausible that whatever resonance Tassie's experience with them might have is completely lost.

March 2010 2010

Tassie's employers probably are meant to be "colorful" characters whose marriage provides a contrast with Tassie's own parents back on the farm.

March 2010 2010

Tassie's employers probably are meant to be "colorful" characters whose marriage provides a contrast with Tassie's own parents back on the farm.

A Sad Decline 2010

Tassie's parents are actually more interesting, although their son's death at the book's conclusion reduces them to a generic set of grieving parents, emblematic, I suppose, of the many other grieving parents created by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

March 2010 2010

Tassie's parents are actually more interesting, although their son's death at the book's conclusion reduces them to a generic set of grieving parents, emblematic, I suppose, of the many other grieving parents created by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A Sad Decline 2010

But the novel's surprise twists — two major ones, involving Tassie's employers and her lover — seem contrived simply to get across the author's big lesson.

Educating Tassie By Abby Wisse Schachter 2009

Ms. Moore, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, ably evokes Tassie's farmgirl-on-campus persona, someone who's a bit wised-up already by her college experience, wry about her fading ­naivete, but still vulnerable to amazement at the unfamiliar.

Educating Tassie By Abby Wisse Schachter 2009

A large helping of the unfamiliar comes Tassie's way when she lands a job working as a nanny for Sarah Brink and Edward Thornwood, who are adopting an African-American daughter.

Educating Tassie By Abby Wisse Schachter 2009

Even Tassie's enrollment in a wine-tasting class prompts a droll moment when she muses on the possibility of being kicked out of the class for being underage.

Educating Tassie By Abby Wisse Schachter 2009