uncensored, zachary wood

I met Zach when he spoke at my school last year. I was impressed by his humility, thoughtfulness, and eagerness to learn. I picked up Uncensored the same day and began reading. Many parts of Zach's story resonated with my own: feeling like an outsider in private school, struggling with my own lack of cultural capital, and being driven by my vaulting ambition to succeed despite my circumstances. And I think that's what I took away from Zach's story. At an elite educational institution, it is not easy to come from a lower social echelon, but rather than perceiving this as a chip on the shoulder, think of it as a strength. By inserting yourself in an uncomfortable environment, you learn to adapt, grow, and to connect with people who are different than you. You learn a different language and set of mannerisms. You learn to be malleable.

One episode that I thought was interesting was when Wood was forced to withdraw from Bullis for sending fake emails from a professor at Brown. Wood was eager to prove his value to the classmate, and he had told his classmate about a "contact" he had at Brown. However, Wood was unwilling to go the extra mile of actually connecting his classmate with the professor, and ultimately created a fake email account and pretended to be the professor. This just shows that no matter how ambitious you are, how eager you are to learn, integrity trumps intellectual curiosity and hard work. I will not make the same mistake as him.

To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of the writing itself. Parts of the book felt self-aggrandizing. Some episodes felt glossed over or sugar-coated. Although Wood's writing is deeply personal (he describes his abusive relationship with his mother, talks about his impoverished circumstances, etc.), I often sensed an unwillingness to be vulnerable and acknowledge his own failures. Also, the parts about his relationships with girls were interesting, but I think they detracted from his overall message about nonpartisan dialogue. It is hard to take someone seriously as a political commentator when you are thinking about how they were hooking up in the stacks. But for a twenty-three-year-old, this book is pretty darn good.