Ratings620
Average rating4.4
Wow. Devastating and so important. This is not just a relational trauma memoir but a record of a spiritual battle, a fight for the grounds of reality itself. A fight in which we will all, at some point, have to make our own stand.
Let me never, never, never try to hold someone hostage to my own world view. That is the genesis of evil.
“I could have my mother's love, but there were terms, the same terms they had offered me three years before: that I trade my reality for theirs, that I take my own understanding and bury it, leave it to rot in the earth.” Ch 39
THIS is what the struggle of the “end times” is about, not owning stupid hoards of food and gasoline and guns, but the ability to own your own thoughts, your own understanding, and through them to connect freely with others, not walled off in fearful isolation. The “end” refers to the end of the era when this was not fully in our own hands. Now it is. A terrifying, amazing prospect. And some have made it through, but many others are falling to the temptation to give themselves up, to bury themselves and remain dead rather than risk true life.
“Once justified, I thought the strangling guilt would release me and I could catch my breath. 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. Guilt is the fear of one's own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.” Ch 40
This was an absorbing, accessible, inspiring, and disturbing book. It was a very quick read; I finished it in three days. This is a point in its favour, for me; it was so engrossing that it was effectively a page-turner. I didn't know it had been recommended by Michelle Obama or Oprah or whoever else until I came to review it here; I found it on a friend's bookshelf while housesitting and picked it up by chance.
As with many memoirs that include elements of abuse, and lifestyle choices that some readers are incapable of comprehending or accepting, there are those (well-represented in the reviews here) who doubt Westover's narrative and suspect that she embellished or invented this story. It's true that there are known cases of putative memoirs that turned out to be made up out of whole cloth. We really have no way of knowing how much (if any) of this story is true, but the fact is that all of it is plausible. Some readers are incapable of understanding that there are communities whose mores and norms diverge sharply from theirs; perhaps they are especially disturbed by some details and prefer to indulge their doubts rather than accept that in some communities, in some families, truly horrific abuse occurs. We see this in some fundamentalist religious communities, and in many cults; it shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that things like this happen. Just because most religious people – even very conservative religious people – don't experience of perpetrate abuses of this nature or degree doesn't mean they don't nevertheless happen: we have only to look at the example of the FLDS Mormon church, the Lev Tahor sect of Haredi Judaism (a tiny sect repudiated by virtually all other Jews), the experience of women and children involved in ISIS, Al-Shabaab, or Boko Haram, and so on. Even outside of religious fundamentalism, the kinds of emotional abuse and manipulation that are depicted in this story happen more often that we'd like to think. The question “why do abused women return to their husbands?” comes to mind; the psychology of people who have endured abuse of this kind is complex, but very real. I've seen it.
Again, there is simply no way of validating the veracity of this story; given that I have no evidence to disprove it, I choose to believe it. Ultimately I found it a very moving story and an engaging read. Westover is truly a very good writer, with some of the best prose I've read recently. If you like this sort of fast-moving melodrama, you will enjoy this book. Don't read it if you are inclined to doubt survivors of abuse and pick apart their testimonies, because the book will likely aggravate you.
Beautifully written and really captures the feeling of living within a dysfunctional family - albeit in the author's case, an extreme example. The feeling of choosing between having a family and having sanity is illustrated well.
Phenomenal
Unbelievable story that so beautifully offers most people a small or even big reflection of themselves. I'll forever be grateful for this story.
This memoir was so many things - a tale of family, abuse, survival, child endangerment, gaslighting, denial... the list goes on. I cannot understand some of Westover's decisions, especially later in the book, but I found myself empathizing nonetheless.
Highly recommend the audiobook for this one, Julia Whelan is a wonderful narrator.
Educated is so truly bizarre that it reads like fiction. I borrowed this book from my husband's coworker. She told me to read the synopsis and when I did, it sounded like a VC Andrew's novel. I've seen people raving about how good this memoir is, but I was still blown away. It's a memoir of mental illness, abuse, family, paranoia, the importance of education, and did I mention abuse? Yikes.
I couldn't put it down. I was so absorbed in her world that when someone started talking to me in real life, I had a full five seconds of confusion about where I was and who I was. That's how riveting Tara's writing is. I was absolutely drawn in to her surroundings, her emotions. It's heart wrenching. It's also such an incredible story of the absolute necessity of education. Something said near the end really hit hard for me. To paraphrase, the difference between the siblings who left the mountain (and the delusion) and who stayed was an education.
I just read a chapter of this in the store and now I have to read it right now immediately
Compelling but not always believable, though she walks through the fact-checking process she did with her family. Threads she argued -for example how her mother's TBI affected her and the family - seemed to get dropped when no longer convenient to the narrative. I found the full use of the N word especially egregious - if you've truly learned, then you know it's not your word to use, even in a story from your memory. Have enjoyed debating and discussing this with others that have read it, and this is a potential BOB book for next year, so I'm curious about student opinion and feel like the stories will linger in my memory.
I was listening to this on audiobook and I ended up walking long after my run because it was impossible to put down. The audio wasn't going fast enough so I ended up finishing in print.
It was equal parts horrifying and hopeful.
This was interesting enough, though totally unbelievable. I have to believe things were stretched and made more dramatic, but who knows, her life could have been this nuts. I just don't buy most of it, but it's an interesting tale. My hold expired when I was about 75% of the way done and I debated not even placing another hold. I'm not really sure finishing made a difference in my mind, but I did finish. Definitely not worth all the hype it's gotten.
Educated reminds me why I love memoirs; they let you peer into experiences that you would otherwise never have known the existence of. Set against the backdrop is of a deeply religious survivalist family, Tara beautifully paints the story of her childhood, with all its horrifying and yet, somehow endearing moments laid bare for the reader. At the same time, she also weaves a deeper story of the pain and trauma and internalized guilt of simultaneously loving her family and wanting to escape the chokehold of a bipolar father and volatile household. A really great read.
Phenomenal and upsetting and hopeful and heartbreaking, all at once. (Content warning for physical and emotional abuse, along with some pretty intense descriptions of injuries, though I don't think any of it was gratuitous or unnecessary.) This book is so compelling and intense. Totally lives up to all the hype around it, which is hard to do. It's simply incredible, clear-eyed and so well-written, never wallowing in the strangeness of the story, which makes it all the more fascinating and believable. Even if this isn't normally your sort of book (it is mine - for some reason I love nonfiction about fundamentalism) you should read this. It's not fun, per se, but it's wonderful nonetheless.
3.5, the triumphant ending really saved it for me. I can only read about horrifying injuries for so long
I'm always wary when I read a memoir about how truthful it is. A little googling suggests that there are very different versions of Westover's story. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of mental illness in this family and it's hard to know how much the author is affected by it. She does do a lot of questionable things - refuses to seek any help until very late, unable to confide in people, constantly seeking approval of others, just for a start. There are also a lot of gaps - when she gets to BYU, she attends church every week. At the end of the story, it seems like she no longer does. She complains about not having friends, not being interested in friends yet she seems to have plenty of them; ditto boyfriends.
This is a grim and depressing story. I'm not sure anyone really grows as a human being.
I'll admit it. Homeless-to-Harvard stories aren't my schtick. There's too much cinematic drama, expected slip-ups that ultimately make for an eye-roll and less-than-engaging story, no matter how truly extraordinary and true it is.
Enter: Educated. What a force, this book. Westover's frank recollection makes a reader feel he or she is in the room - you feel her pull to something outside the world she knows, you see the impossibility that surrounds her every basic desire.
Queen of the Spoiler Alert, I, of course, knew Tara Westover was going to be just fine. Better than fine, in fact. Which is what separates Westover's skill as an author and storyteller that much more stirring. Educated has become one of those required-reading recommendations for me.
Typically I don't read memoirs or autobiographies, but after reading Crying in H Mart, I had this on my list to read next. Wow! What a great book. Tara has a way of writing that makes it hard to stop. I definitely could feel her emotions and how she evolved through her time in school. It's also crazy to believe the experiences she was a part of and how that shaped her life. Definitely a solid book and easy to read, despite it being on the longer side.
Wow. Read this book. It's not about a fringe-y survivalist family. It's about the family dynamics that converge from mental illness, religion, close-knit groups, and gender power imbalances. It's about how people still love the family members who are toxic to them, and desire a place within their family and community. It's about finding the education that provides a new lens to see your entire life, just by giving it context.
This was a well-written memoir. I appreciated the honesty and depth of the author—I trusted her, which I find hard to do with most memoirists at this point.
I appreciated that there was no tidy bow on this story.
Simply extraordinary. Education snuck up on me a little and by the time I'd reached the halfway point of this incredible book I was unprepared for how invested I had become. Tara Westover manages to articulate the myriad of feelings that come from loving damaged people, how our histories shape us, and how we are formed and reformed by trauma. She does so both unflinchingly and gently, without artifice and with lyrical prose. I couldn't put this book down.
At times nausea inducing, always fascinating, either the characters writ large on the page. Gaps where I wanted to know more in some places (like, I wanted to know how Westover dealt with moving in with her partner and overcoming the “living in sin” thoughts) and cyclical in others (many of the stories with Shawn were essentially playing out over and over, although I understand this to be a reflection of the realities of abuse).
Incredible how in spite of all the pain and essentially brainwashing Tara went through as a kid, she still found a way to overcome.