This is a memoir about Westover's childhood, growing up in Utah, the youngest of seven siblings. The author's parents didn't believe in anything connected to the government, including modern medicine. The children were homeschooled, but actually didn't receive much of an education. Any sickness or injury was treated with herbal medicines, even severe injuries caused by car accidents and explosions. When she was seventeen, Westover went to school for the first time and spent the next decade pursuing an education.
This was a difficult book to read, both because of the graphic incidents of violence and abuse described and because it is hard to believe that parents could behave the way the author's parents did. Throughout the book Westover wrestles with the idea of her own worth and whether or not she can disagree with her family's beliefs and still be a good person. This is a fascinating look at how education can be the solution to isolation and misinformation.

"I am only seven, but I understand that it is this fact, more than any other, that makes my family different: we don't go to school."

Tara Westover begins her memoir with this fact. It's typical of the book: not written in soaring prose, but stated factually. We learn much more about her upbringing. Her fundamentalist Mormon family is extreme in the extreme -- the family lives on a mountain, and Dad rules the roost in every way. He fears the government (the kids don't have birth certificates and the family doesn't visit doctors, even when they are horrifically burned or when they are badly hurt in car accidents). He prepares the family for the "end of days" and preaches to them about the evils of the Illuminati: "I spent my summers bottling peaches and my winters rotating supplies. When the World of Men failed, my family would continue on, unaffected."

And of course, Dad doesn't believe in the kids attending school. Instead, Mom "home schools" them, although this amounts to little. Tara remembers paging through a math book. She decides to count each page her fingers touch as studied, so when her mom asks her how many pages she has completed, she answers "Fifty." Her mom is proud and exclaims over how she could never make that kind of progress in public schools.

"Normal" to Tara consists of this type of schooling, and of working at her dad's junkyard. It's only later that her "understanding would shift, part of (her) heavy swing into adulthood."

Her older brother, Tyler, decides to buck the family's rules and attend college. His parents are not happy: "College is extra school for people too dumb to learn the first time around," her dad says. However, Tyler tells Tara about how much he enjoys learning: "There's a world out there, Tara, and it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear."

Tara decides to take the ACT and try to get into college herself. First she has to find a math book and do months of study, but she does get a high enough score to get in. She is totally a fish out of water there, not knowing about the Holocaust or many other historical events that pretty much everyone else grew up knowing. She is appalled at the wardrobe of many of the girls (and this is at Brigham Young, a conservative school), having been taught by her dad that a "righteous woman never shows anything above her ankles."

Throughout the book, one thing that puzzled and frustrated me was now supportive Tara's mom was of her dad, at the expense of her children. In some ways, she tries to help Tara escape and go to school. But ultimately, she stays loyal to her husband even when it means writing Tara out of her life. I understand that she has been brainwashed by him (as Tara was as a child, and as many of her siblings still are), but still, it was maddening. To this day, when Tara has contacted her mom to see if she can visit her, Mom refuses, unless Dad can come along as well. "Dad had always been a hard man -- a man who knew the truth on every subject and wasn't interested in what anybody else had to say. We listened to him, never the other way around: when he was not speaking, he required silence."

And Dad is a mess. Tara learns at some point about bipolar disorder, and it opens up a whole new level of understanding to her: this describes her dad's behavior exactly. Of course, given his beliefs, seeing a doctor or taking any type of medication is unthinkable. Heaven help the family when he gets riled up (which is often). "The Lord has called me to testify," he says to Tara at one point. "He is displeased. You have cast aside His blessings to whore after man's knowledge. His wrath is stirred against you. It will not be long in coming."

After a shaky start, Tara goes on to succeed wildly in the academic world, studying at Cambridge and Harvard, and having now earned her PhD (interestingly, she and three of her siblings have all earned PhD's, while the other three still live with the parents and have never attended school). Yet her parents, particularly her dad, still seem oblivious. "It proves one thing at least," her dad says at a graduation. "Our home school is as good as any public education."

Tara is hugely conflicted throughout the book. She loves learning and the "real" world, while being understandably still pulled toward the family that was her entire world as she grew up. Once a friend asks if she is angry that her parents didn't put her in school. "It was an advantage!" she shouts, realizing as she says it that she's speaking from instinct. Her friend answers, "Well, I'm angry, even if you aren't."

And I felt angry as I read this book as well. It's hard to read -- like "Glass Castle" but harsher -- and it always annoys me when a family is abusive under the cover of religion, thereby turning the kids off to God in the process (Tara doesn't mention her faith these days, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't attend church).

Ironically, the family's off-the-grid lifestyle has ended up serving them well. They started an herbal business ("a spiritual alternative to Obamacare") that now earns them hundreds of thousands each year.

This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. It will make you think. Highly recommended.

4.2 - powerful, personal memoir; and intriguing that the author was so interested in philosophy given her upbringing - reminiscent of The Glass Castle

A memoir that would be preposterous fiction -- proof that truth is stranger than fiction. The author was raised in rural Idaho in an extremist Mormon/survivalist family who, despite the lack of an education, grew up to be a Cambridge PhD. Sometimes very difficult to believe, this is a fine example of resilience of the human soul. Although sometimes the narrative drifts into so much introspection that I was a bit bored, most of the time I was glued to the story. For fans of other memoirs like Running with Scissors or fiction like Room.

NOTE: The author is clear that her father's beliefs were a corruption of the teachings of the LDS (Mormon) church, and is not critical of the mainstream religion.

Quite a fascinating memoir about the author's childhood growing up in a family that shuns formal education and modern medicine, only to experience a seismic shift in worldview when she took herself off to college at seventeen.

Really gripping in the first half, the book becomes a more emotional piece about family dynamics towards the end.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this book. When you see the title "Educated," you automatically think "school," but by the end of Tara's memoir, the word holds much more weight. Life experiences, valuable role models and mentors, and constant self-discovery all contribute to a person's education, and no one's path to becoming educated is the same. Tara's unconventional path is a testament to that and should give hope to anyone who feels like taking control of their life is impossible.

Tara's story is a truly remarkable one - until the age of 16, she had no formal education and was living in a house mostly cut off from the modern world due to her strict Mormon upbringing and her controlling father. When she decides to escape her mentally and physically abusing home and go to college, Tara must learn how the world really functions outside of the bubble that was Buck Peak, Idaho and try to reconcile her sheltered and sometimes traumatizing upbringing with what she missed out on growing up.

I really enjoyed Tara's writing style. This is a heavy story that is told with such detail and frankness but avoids being over-the-top. It's clear that events that seem shocking and unbelievable to readers were just life as she knew it for Tara, which left me feeling a mixture of heartbreak and awe. Tara is clearly a strong, intelligent, and resourceful woman from the very beginning, and she shows this without being self-serving in her writing. How she was able to go from never having heard of the Holocaust as a college freshman to getting her PhD from Harvard is mind-boggling just to read, so I can't imagine how Tara felt as she actually navigated through this new way of life.

As far as memoirs go, I thought Educated was one of the most well-crafted ones I've read in a long time.

EDUCATED
Tara Westover

MY RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️▫️
PUBLISHER Random House
PUBLISHED February 20, 2018

A gripping, heartbreaking memoir of a woman who, against all odds, overcomes immense family obstacles to gain an education, opening her eyes to a world she never knew existed.

SUMMARY
TARA WESTOVER never went to school, never saw a doctor and did not have a birth certificate. Her parents were Idaho survivalists, and wanted nothing to do with the government, schools or hospitals. She and her six brothers and one sister lived off the land. Her mother was a midwife and healer and treated every family malady—cuts, burns, broken bones, and head trauma— with herbs and oils. At age 10, Tara is put to work savaging scrap metal from her father’s junkyard, a dangerous job with no consideration to safety. When one of Tara’s older brother becomes physical and mentally abusive to her, her parents turn a blind eye. At fifteen, Tara begins educating herself. She learned enough math and grammar to pass the ACT and be admitted to Brigham Young University at the age of 17. There she studied history and learned of events such as the civil right movement and the Holocaust for the first time. From Brigham Young her quest continued at Cambridge and Harvard, ultimately earning a PhD at the age of 27. Throughout her education Tara Westover experiences tremendous conflict between the awareness she gained from her education and her loyalty to her family.

REVIEW
My experience in reading EDUCATED was not without its own conflicts. This hard to forget story is both maddening and heartbreaking. It is both gripping and difficult to read. I wanted to reach out and shake Tara out of her silence of the torment and abuse she suffered. I wanted to put my arm around her and give her the confidence to yell and scream at those holding her down. I wanted to tell her to get out, and not to go back home again. She touched me with this book, and I hope it will be the salve she needs to heal. Perhaps she has finally found her voice. It’s truly amazing what Tara has been able to accomplish. My hat is off to her. I hope that someday she realizes the fault is not and was never with her.

A father is suppose to protect and keep his children out of harms way, Tara’s did not. A mother is supposed to love and educate her children, Tara’s did not. A big brother is suppose to look out for his little sister. Tara’s did not. But now she’s educated and hopefully will break the cycle of abuse, denial and most of all, silence.

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House and Tara Westover for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Incredible true story of young girl raised in a survivalist family where the word of God and her father rule her upbringing. Amazing the strength and courage she had to muster to educate herself and escape that small tiny world she only knew.

Two different worlds converge and collide in this autobiographical account of a young woman growing in self worth and worldly knowledge. The imagery portrayed through her writing was evident on the first page of the Prologue. I was drawn into the pictorial account of her writing by the vivid phrases used to portray the geography where she was raised. The story gave an open account of the trials that familial relationships go through when faced with conflicting personalities and challenging mental health issues. As the author grew in understanding through education, she was forced to acknowledge discrepancies in what she had been taught growing up and what she learned through advancing her learning. Quite fascinating to read how the author grew as she encountered new ideas and reflected on disturbing memories from the past. Additionally, though lacking in a formal education in her youth, it was astonishing to read the rapid progression during which her education occurred.

While I was moved by Tara's story, I was less impressed by the storytelling. This was an intense read and I kept wanting it to just be over and for Tara to tell of her happy ending. For me this would have been a better inspirational talk or magazine article than a book.

I found it difficult to put this book down! Westover's story was fascinating. It wasn't perfect - there were problems with pacing here and there - but then again, I don't think I'd trust the veracity of a perfectly paced memoir. I wish her all the best, and I'm glad I read her story.

Loved this story of a girl who can step away from her family and move forward to reach unheard of levels of accomplishment and happiness. She did it with dignity and no need to trash her parents or their beliefs. Thank you for not making the Mormons look like strange fanatics, but acknowledging it was her father taking his beliefs too far.

Fabulous book. Thoroughly loved. Highly recommend!

A memoir covering Westover's childhood growing up in Idaho with an unstable, violent family, obsessed with preparing for the end of the world, to her escape into higher education <i>Educated</i> was a difficult book to read. Not because it is technically difficult, but because I was mentally screaming at the abuse she had to endure at the hands of her family, even into her adulthood.

Furthermore, I was surprised by the tone of the book. I wanted her to condemn her family for what they had done to her (I really, really wanted her to!) but Westover makes few judgments as she lays out the facts for us.

Overall, it's an interesting, hard read. Maybe not my cup of tea, but well written all the same.

I would recommend this book to folks who like a memoirs about disturbing childhoods (You know who you are), and folks who like to read about doomsday preppers.

With Educated Tara Westover writes a startling memoir of her life growing up in a fundamentalist family that believes in complete self-reliance. Their anti-government attitude extends to public schools, and Tara receives very little homeschooling.
When Tara, despite opposition from family members, does attend university later, she is at first confused by the history surrounding the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement, because not only had she not been taught about these items at home, she had also been fed an ideology that did not square with them.
As she works on her formal education, she is torn by her loyalty to her family and her desire to learn and think critically. This struggle continues through her graduation from Brigham Young University to her studies at Cambridge and Harvard.
This book covers a great deal of ground, and it is especially good at portraying the emotional and mental damage caused by the extremism and abuse of family members.
However, Educated is also about the mental and emotional growth that occurs through education. It's about the importance of support by friends and others. And finally, it's about breaking with those who would hold you back and choosing those who love and support you.
This is a powerful and important book that is well worth your time!
[This review, or a version thereof, will be published on bookreflections.com on or around February 20th, 2018)

She was the youngest of seven, one sister, five brothers. Raised on a mountain top in Idsho, by a survivalist father and midwife mother . Of the Mormon religion, her father preached the coming of the end days, intrusion by the government, built a bomb shelter, stockpiled fuel, food, guns. He ruled with an iron fist, the word of God and the family fell in line. Though there was another factor in her father's psyche that she wouldn't understand or figure out until much later. There were no doctor visits, no immunizations, no formal schooling, no friends other than family, so many things not allowed. They were in effect totally off the grid. Yet, somehow this young woman manages to educate herself, pull herself out of the morass of the paranoia her father fed on and used to control the family.

When I read books like these, people despite all odds to the contrary that manage to overcome so much adversity and rise to meet and supercede lives challenges, I am awed. The things one reads in this book are unbelievable, difficult to assimilate, and yet they happened. The struggles that Tara had to overcome are written without excess emotion, though in her words you do realize just how hard this struggle was and is still. Her journey, not without many steps back, at times literally tore her apart. I always wonder why and how some people are able to pull themselves out and above these situations, while some cannot, as is apparent in her own family. Where do they find their strength of will?

My first five star read of the year, and I have nothing but admiration and respect for this young woman, who is a formidable person indeed. I hope she continues to find the peace she needs, and is able to resolve her relationship with her family.

ARC from Netgalley.

It is inevitable that a reader/reviewer will be attracted to books of similar subjects, and nowhere was it more evident than two books I read recently -- Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone and this debut work by Tara Westover, Educated. Both present an isolated family controlled by a delusional charismatic father. Hannah's tragedy plays out in the far north of Alaska, while Educated is centered in the deep wilderness of Idaho. To me, Westover's memoir is by far the more powerful for being true. With no defense but her own developing mind, Tara fights the sick family dynamic created by her paranoid father and his perverted view of the will of God. The extraordinary fact that Tara never attended school and was barely educated at home makes her drive to get a college education all the more remarkable. Watching her steady battle against the roadblocks set up by her family is only half the story. Her lucid writing takes us deep into her own stunted character development. Never have I had a clearer understanding of the self-doubt that torments an individual with little support system. The story is even more remarkable as it continues to be written beyond the pages of the book. There is no easy conclusion with all loose endings neatly tied up. This is a life that is only now reaching its potential. I look forward to more of Westover's insightful writing.

Wow. Just Wow.

I described this book, poorly, to my husband as "a Glass Castle on steroids," but of course, it is similar but also nothing the same.

It boggles my mind what some endure, and how they detach from it (or survive it) to go on to lead normal and/or successful lives, and others cannot/do not.

There were times when this book was almost impossible to continue, it was so horrible to imagine.

I am glad I read this book and wish Tara Westover the very best of everything.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this amazing book.

Wow. Just wow. What a story of strength and tenacity and the power of the human spirit.

Wow. If you're looking for a book to assure you that you did, indeed, have a pretty decent childhood, here you go. I'm so glad Tara survived her harrowing upbringing and was able to get her "education."

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.