Summary

Part 2 began with Chapter 17, “To Keep It Holy,” describing Tara’s difficult transition to city life. She distrusted her roommates, Shannon and Mary, based on their clothing and actions that went against her father’s Mormon preaching. She took the wrong bus route and was late to her first senior-level class that she would have to drop for a lower level. It was difficult for her to decipher words and phrases of her textbooks, and she held tightly to her father’s “doctrine” (156). She was shunned by her Western civilization class when she revealed her ignorance of the Holocaust, then felt anger toward her mother for not teaching her the full truth. To keep her religious practices intact, she tried not to do homework on the Sabbath. Upon attending church with her roommates, she felt further isolation from the students who followed a different...