Book Review: Educated by Tara Westover

 Synopsis

Tara Westover was 17 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 in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. 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 one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important 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. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.

My thoughts

Worth the hype!!

I have been seeing this book everywhere YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter so I finally decided to read it myself and see if it was really as good as people say. 

This is definitely one of the best memoirs I have read. I really like memoirs because for me learning about how people lived, their family life, culture really teaches you lessons about people. Sometimes we as individuals are quick to pass judgement on others without knowing that their struggles at times cause them to be how they are. 

Tara's father clearly had undiagnosed mental illness perhaps bipolar disorder and this impacted the lives of not only Tara but her brothers and sister and in my opinion her mother most of all. I never quite understood Tara's mother, she made me really angry. I felt that she really turned a blind eye to everything and because of this made things worse. But then again I guess she depicted the role of the wife in a culture such as this so maybe her subservience was her coping mechanism or a way of convincing herself that things were not as bad as they seemed to be.

Tara is such as strong person her story really makes you believe that anything is possible. Here is a story of a young woman who persevered. She began school for the first time at seventeen, never sat in a class before, no money, winning scholarships, teaching herself, playing catch up. If this is not strength I do not know what is. I think that this is a book that everyone who feels that they cannot achieve something should read.

Belonging to a family that is toxic like in Tara's case really affected her mentally. This in my opinion is a reality for many people. It was important for us to feel what she was going through. The whole experience with her brother Shawn and being abused were obstacles, and I think it was important for her to detail those bad days so that we as readers could understand that even though education, opened her eyes and broadened her perspective on life her past always had a way of affecting her.

Overall this was a good book. Exactly the type of book I would like to discuss in a book club were I in one.