Tara Westover

This book stems from a profoundly foundational family squabble. Westover’s parents practice a strictly conservative form of Mormonism in Idaho. They follow the virtue of self-reliance to the point that they did not put their children into school or get them birth certificates. However, some of their children, like the author, ended up making their ways into college and eventually graduate school. This memoir tells one daughter’s life from rural Idaho into BYU and eventually into show more Cambridge University. Like many who journey from religious fundamentalism towards higher education, her and her siblings’ experiences have sadly severed their family.

The author’s decade-long journey towards self-mastery is nothing but impressive. Her father likely had bipolar disorder, and this probably untreated mental illness fed into a deep paranoia about the world. This was further fueled by a cultural isolation in rural Idaho. Their family latched onto a fundamentalism form of Mormonism with apocalyptic and authoritarian tendencies. In addition, alleged physical abuse, not to mention neglect, intruded into their family dynamics. The author’s spiritual and intellectual journey consists of coming to terms with her upbringing. She lands on a reality-based understanding amidst rigorous academic studies about Mormonism’s place in wider modern history.

This story will attempt to trigger many family insecurities in readers, and understandably so. There are a lot of dynamics going on in this family. Be forewarned: There is no “happy ending” where everything comes together. It’s a story about a young woman coming to terms with her world and making informed choices amidst erudition and higher education. She asks herself important questions like, Is this worth it? She almost fails but eventually succeeds in graduating with a PhD in history.

This books speaks of the sacrifices that academic careers can require. It also speaks of deeply oppressive circumstances. It can encourage readers who wonder whether a professional career via education is worth it. To Westover, the answer seems to be yes, but the price of freedom is high and lonely. Interestingly, her mother, a naturopathic entrepreneur, wrote her own memoir of these experiences. I have not read it, but the contrast between these two camps seems stark. This author’s story is eloquent and expressive and leaves much to ponder in thought. show less

Usually, when I read a book in which the author records her professors and others telling her how brilliant she is, I’d put it down. Educated is an exception since that outside view is so out of sync with her inside view.
This book is about family—a very specific, even unusual family—yet it tells a universal story about how our family of origin and our physical environment (a mountain named Princess is an important character in the book) shape us.
When Educated was published, it show more generated publicity as the story of a girl whose first day in a classroom was when, at seventeen, she set foot on the campus of Brigham Young University. She told everyone she had been home-schooled, but there had been little of that. For the most part, since childhood, she had worked in her father’s scrapyard or assisted her mother in midwifery and concocting herbal remedies. Westover was the youngest child of parents at the survivalist fringe of Mormonism.
After fearing she wouldn’t last more than a semester at BYU, she graduated magna cum laude and went on to earn a Ph.D. in history at Cambridge University. This involved a psychologically painful reconfiguring of her mind and personality, no longer subservient to her father’s dicta, which she had largely internalized, nor in opposition to them, but based on her own reading and critical reflection. In essence, it’s a process we all go through in maturing, but for few of us does it mean such a radical break. As of the book’s publication, she no longer had contact with her parents or four siblings. In a final reflection on the book’s title, she notes that this correlates entirely along the lines of education: three left the valley and earned Ph. D.s, the other four remained in Idaho and never completed school.
She notes this without condemning anyone. I was struck by the amount of understanding and sympathy Westover shows toward all her family, despite abuse, betrayal, and life-threatening injury. She is proud of her education, but laments that it’s effect has been a chasm of separation. In a way, her family is emblematic of the red/blue divide of our society.
This is a book of courage and insight. In addition, it is well-written. show less

In a memoir reminiscent of Jeanette Walls' "The Glass Castle", Westover tells of growing up in a profoundly dysfunctional family where probable mental illness is left undiagnosed and untreated, where physical isolation from mainstream society leaves her and her siblings uneducated and unprotected from extremist rhetoric and paranoid fantasy.

That Westover is able to pull herself out of this environment and win academic honors is only half the story. The other half covers her less successful show more struggle to separate herself emotionally from a family that tolerated, ignored, and occasionally imposed the physical and mental abuse that defined her childhood and adolescence. show less

Incredibly gripping and expertly told, Tara Westover's memoir of living in rural Idaho had me reading at break-neck speed. The way Westover organizes her chapters makes the book nearly impossible to put down. One chapter opens with scenes from a car wreck in which her mother, never hospitalized, suffers a traumatic brain injury. The rest of the chapter is spent revealing the fateful events leading up to the car crash.

Westover spends her youth barely surviving all kinds of scrapes and show more accidents while scrapping metal for her father. Her fundamentalist-Mormon family eschews grade school education in favor of a survivalist "education" at home. When Westover finally makes it to college, her painful naiveté is on full display and made me feel deeply grateful for the privilege of having a basic education. Can you imagine being a young adult in a college classroom and having no prior knowledge of segregation, Jim Crow...the Holocaust? This is a must-read. show less