Book Review: Educated a Memoir by Tara Westover

EDUCATED: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Release Date:  02/20/2018

Genre: Memoir

352 Pages

Publisher: Random House

I rated 5 stars on Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

"Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills” bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father’s junkyard.

The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent. 

When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics, philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. "

REVIEW

This book was one of the most extraordinary memoirs I have ever read!

I was blown away by it!

Tara is the youngest of seven children, born to Mormon fundamentalist parents. Her father believes the End of Days is near and that school is where the government brainwashes children.  Hospitals and medicine are forbidden, so injuries are treated at home.  She is also constantly beaten and abused by one of her brothers, who broke her wrist and constantly shoved her head into the toilet.

There's no question that physical and psychological abuse can cause damaging effects on an person.  We clearly sense this by how Tara describes herself: insecure, out-of-place and constantly feeling that she doesn't belong, that she's a fake.    

While at Cambridge, Tara viewed the other students as "refined and educated", while she had the tendency to mumble, and even stutter when nervous.  She struggles with the guilt of betraying her family by acquiring knowledge.  She starts to question her father's stories, her mother's conformity and her sibling's silence.    

Educated tells a  powerful story, very honest and well written.  It can be pretty hard to read at some parts, but so was her life.  Her writing guides the reader to follow her on her journey of self-discovery, feel her despair, her fears, and her desire to succeed.

And succeed she did.

In the end, Tara is someone that loves her family deeply, but could no longer conform to her parents beliefs and accept the denials and twisting stories.  The infinite hope that things would change was there, but she was finally able to renounce her father's world and break free from her guilt.

There's a line in the book, that stayed with me: "But vindication has no power over guilt.  No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them."

I will recommend this book to all my friends.  It's definitely a MUST-READ!