#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University “Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW … Times
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her 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 one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. 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.
“Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • Time • NPR • Good Morning America • San Francisco Chronicle • The Guardian • The Economist • Financial Times • Newsday • New York Post • theSkimm • Refinery29 • Bloomberg • Self • Real Simple • Town & Country • Bustle • Paste • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • LibraryReads • Book Riot • Pamela Paul, KQED • New York Public Library
more
You’ll read this book in a day. It’s amazing. I couldn’t put it down, then everything else felt boring in comparison. Really great read. Wow.
Good, but disturbing.
Good book. A bit disjointed but I think that’s because it’s a memoir. Sometimes it just seemed to go from one incident to another. It got a little tiring after a while. I mean Something good must have happened in her life. And how did she get back on track in college after ‘watching tv’ for a semester?
Extremely well written.
I found the individual’s inability to leave her family behind and all the whining really pathetic. As I have been through a bad family life which came to the need to finally break free, i know how hard it is…but just do it..stop allowing them to abuse you.
Unbelievable that she went through a miserable childhood and came through it with so much determination to be a highly educated and successful adult.
I couldn’t put it down. So enlightening.
The book has so many twist/turns; I was amazed that the main character couldn’t wait to leave home, etc. , however she returned and was supportive of a Father that was so strict/self determined to do everything “HIS” way. The book had a happy ending.
This is a true story of a woman who had to overcome odds that were unbelievable. She had to deal with many many conflicts between religion and and family and her true self. Couldn’t put it down.
Educated by Tara Westover
Random House ©2018
I like a good autobiography and this one is especially interesting because at the time of publication, 2018, the author, Tara Westover was only thirty-two. What could a thirty-two year old possibly write about to fill the pages of a book? She’s only lived a quarter of her life. Turns out she has a lot to say.
Ms. Westover was born in 1986 in Idaho. She lived in the shadow of Buck’s Peak, the youngest of seven children in her two parent, fanatical Mormon family. One of her earliest memories was her father obsessing, “Dad said public school was a ploy by the Government to lead children away from God.”
Instead of going to school, the children in the Westover family assisted their mother with concocting tinctures in their kitchen to peddle to locals for headaches and other ailments. Mr. Westover had a junkyard, plunking rusted cars and scrap metal next to the manicured yard of his parents at the base of the mountain. All of the children, including the youngest, was expected to work in the junkyard. The list of severe injuries resulting from their father’s reckless behavior in this business is lengthy.
Tara’s father ranted obsessively about various topics, cornering friends and relatives in church, waving the bible, and insisting they give up such things as milk. At home, he insisted his children and wife listen to his rants and readings from the bible. When she was older, Tara learned her father’s behavior had a name and he was mentally ill. She started thinking at an early age that she wanted out of their dysfunctional, enmeshed family. This was magnified when she realized she was the last vulnerable child for her older brother, Shawn, to abuse and manipulate. She watched as he did the same thing to her mother, finally realizing he was a sadistic and dangerous man, capable of hurting or killing.
At a young age Ms. Westover had the ability to recognize the dysfunction in her family: “I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others—because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.”
Her education began, she was self-taught, studying sample questions for the college entrance exams, and by sixteen she had passed them and later qualified for an impressive scholarship. “Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
Tara Westover was aware when she left Buck’s Peak that what she left behind was a sort of education. By the age of ten, she knew how to drive the same heavy machinery at the junkyard that her older brothers drove. She knew what herbs to use with a woman in labor and on severe burns from a welding torch. However she didn’t know how to dress, which fork to use at a formal dinner, or how to accept help from well-meaning professors. What troubled her most was that to think for herself, she must accept she would be shunned by her father.
“Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas . . . was at the heart of what it means to self-create.”
This woman, Tara Westover, educated herself beyond the junkyard and midwife’s kitchen. She excelled and absorbed the libraries of Brigham Young University, Cambridge, and Harvard. Her first book, Educated is eloquent and a must read for any woman wishing to define herself and self-create.
Educated was very eye opening. It was hard for me to imagine that there are families in this country who raise their children this way. And that a child could “rise above” against such odds. Wonderful!
This was very difficult for me to read. I could not imagine a person having to live such a tragic life.
This is a best seller that actually deserves the acclaim. If only the author’s resilience could be bottled, many victims of horrendous family abuse could be helped. The author never wallows in self-pity and her escape from the people who should have protected and nourished her is nothing short of miraculous. If your eyes glaze over and you want to shrink from one more story of a child’s survival of abuse, get over it and read this book. You’ll be grateful for your own life and be inspired by the author’s.
Hard to believe her family, their beliefs and their behavior.
incredibly honest, story about hope
I liked this book a lot. It shows that against all odds you can still be successful.
This is a story about self improvement against all odds, Tara never went to school l, she had to study by herself in her home.
Her parents were really obsessed with the end of the world and lived asolated from the society, in that environment their children didn’t know a lot of things. There’s psychological and physical abuse.
Tara’s autobiography is inspiring and a great read.
This well written memoir was hard to put down. To think someone grew up in the situation Tara did and then go on to accomplish all she did is nothing short of amazing.
This book reminded me of the Glass Castle. It exposes the lives of children of mentally ill parents as they grow up.
I enjoyed this book. Kept my interest. The abuse inflicted upon the main character were astonishing. Unbelievable that people can mistreat loved ones in this manner.