Educated: A Memoir

This was on my TBR since early 2019. The wait has been worth it folks!
Writing a review for this book, when it has been reviewed by Bill Gates just feels odd.

But we're going to attempt it anyway.
Tara Westover tells her story in this brave recounting of her childhood, her upbringing and the effect it had on her behavior and understanding of the world as she grew up.

She takes us through her days living on buck's peak and working in her dad's workshop.
Her experiences as a child and teen years are unimaginable, but you do sympathize with her because of the things she was lead to believe were true.

Had Tara been just a graduate, I would have been beyond amazed at what she had achieved, without a High School Degree (she was homeschooled).

But a Graduate and a Ph.D. is unimaginable and I'll be forever grateful for Tara for penning down this disturbing, but mostly inspiring memoir of her life till now.

A must read.

Raw, deep, and engaging. One of the best books I read this year.

Awesome, sometimes heartbreaking, story. Extremally relatable and shows the undeniable need for education.

I really enjoyed Tara Westover's writing and the style of how she told her story. The story was always building to her final conclusions and the additional footnotes adding more insight or other perspectives made the experience feel so genuine.

I know there has been a few critiques of how she managed higher education are too vague, glossed over or exaggerated. For anyone to tell their life story, especially with how much Tara packs into this short book, it is understandable that the details would get skipped over in favour of more relevant portions.

I found this extremely compelling. Like, it jumped ahead of two already-started books on my list and I stayed up too late to finish it compelling. Westover gives a harrowing account of her childhood, capturing the survivalist mentality still prevalent in parts of the inland northwest and how that intersects with Mormonism, but viewed through the painfully complex lens of the emotional ties that bind us to our families. She has a remarkable degree of empathy for all the people who shaped her in childhood, and deftly resists moralizing and an overly optimistic ending. Based on this, I would read anything she ever cares to write.

I don't know why I read these type of books. I'm glad she got out and got help, but so many people live like this and need help it annoys me to read about it. I always get sucked in by the blurbs and then get annoyed by the content. That's not to say she's a bad writer. Not at all, her writing is great, very lyrical, I found a lot of quotes. I just don't don't want to read about terrible lives.

Riveting read! Such an incredible journey. Highly recommended reading.

once i was a couple chapters in i found this book impossible to put down. i (unfairly) expected a sensational account of the author's unusual childhood, and while there are definitely some gruesome passages, the author's reflections on the fallibility of memory in traumatic situations, the dissociative effect of decades of gaslighting, and her refusal to reduce any members of her family - even in their cruelest moments - to mere caricatures are what made this such a compelling and engaging read.

Read with my mom <3
we have differing tastes, but we both agree that this book is great!

Many instances in this series of disasters boil down to common sense and safety. While her father's bi-polar disorder coupled with his survivalist tendencies contributed to not only mental abuse - mental neglect? – it also led to him to not educate his family on ideas of simple safety. He placed productivity and preparedness ahead of valuing his family and children.

I grew up on a farm where we operated and maintained many dangerous pieces of equipment. Swathers, combines, choppers, blowers, PTO shafts spinning, hydraulic lines pumping and squidging, snow mobiles, 500 gallon fuel storage units on-site, welders, acetylene torches, electric fences, augurs, elevators, poisonous herbicides, livestock capable of trampling, cultivators, feed grinders, 80' silo ladders, grain bin vacuums, and so on. Before any of us kids were allowed to touch, mount, drive, or operate ANY of it, we were carefully trained, and taught to listen and learn as grandpa Vernor, uncle Freeman, older cousin Randy, and even cousin Nancy taught us their proper use and operation, and warned us of every way something could go wrong that would put us in danger or cause a costly breakdown. Reading this book has caused me to look back on my farm days with a new appreciation for my family.

Don't read this when you have anything to do or anywhere to be. It's gripping.

After finishing this, I was struck by several things:

1) how important it is that realization, and consequently change, happens internally. There are several characters in the book that see her situation for what it is, and Tara can't comprehend what they're saying. It's like someone is asleep - they have to choose to wake up. You cannot wake them up from the outside.

2) her inability to accept help. Mercifully, several characters see what's happening and try so hard to help her. She refuses their help. It does make a difference that they reached out, eventually, so small things do matter. One astute, persistent professor in particular.

3) lack of boundaries. After she's realized the toxicity of her family, she still allows her visiting parents to stay in her dorm room. For a WEEK. I don't care how good of a relationship you have with your even normal parents, that won't fly. You can hear the dread, but she still can't say no. The strength of a child's desire (even, especially an adult child) to have a close, functional relationship with their parents (and siblings) is so strong you get the feeling that if there were any attempt by them to reach out she would reciprocate. And this is the kind of relationship that cannot exist in a nontoxic form.

Getting an education was the tipping point, but this book is about much more than that - her journey of learning to stop rationalizing, see the painful truth for what it is, and think for herself. This is worth the read for her incredibly clear, honest writing of self-discovery, and it's an excellent look into human nature. I hope she continues to seek therapy, learn to stick up for herself, and has the support she needs to navigate whatever comes next.

What a family! This eminently readable memoir will make you think about your own family and perhaps about the unhealed wounds that may still exist. It's almost unbelievable that the only unnatural death in the book is the killing of a dog.

This was excellent. Westover has a strong narrative voice that grips the reader from the first sentence.

A friend recommended this book to me because she was fascinated by Westover's ability to overcome her lack of primary and secondary education to earn a PhD from Cambridge. Thus, I went into this expecting to be intrigued by Westover's survivalist upbringing. While that part was certainly interesting, I think the most potent aspect of the book, is Westover's portrayal of abuse and the ways in which families often protect abusers in the name of ‘family loyalty'. Something I found powerful about her portrayal of Shawn's abuse, were the tender moments interspersed between the more brutal ones. Even though I hated Shawn, there were times I had to remind myself that he was horrible and whatever niceness he was showing Tara at the moment could disappear at the drop of a hat. Despite familial neglect and abuse, Westover portrays her parents and siblings in a nuanced, balanced manner. Nobody is all good or all bad. But she does not make any excuses for their behaviour either.

Throughout the book, Westover contrasts her own memories with those of others who experienced the same events. She sometimes mentions that there are gaps in her memory regarding certain key events. In my opinion, these choices, rather than making her an unreliable narrator serve to highlight the questions Educated raises about who gets to tell history and why. Westover prizes her education because it allowed her to read multiple narratives and construct her own, when before she had been forced to accept her father's narrative as truth. Therefore, by highlighting her own fallibility, she does not force the reader to accept her own narrative as truth either.

I probably won't read (or listen) to the entire book again because I found some scenes difficult to get through but I will definitely be thinking about this book for a long, long time.

Beautiful writing, intense content–I'm glad I read this memoir. Although, I'm also so sad and angry about how religion, mental illness, and abuse broke this family. Every chapter is heartwrenching.

I hadn't wanted to read this book. Sure, I'd marked it want-to-read, but I'd secretly been hoping I could avoid actually doing so. No such luck: a friend pressed her copy into my hands. I swallowed hard as I thanked her.

It was oh so much more infuriating than I'd expected. I did not like the feelings it evoked in me, of fury and helplessness. Things don't have to be that way!, I kept wanting to shout into the book. But that's the thing about ignorance: you just don't know any better; and that's the thing about an American subculture that worships stupidity: you rarely get the chance to learn.

Tara Westover was incredibly fortunate: hyperintelligent, talented, and somehow presented with improbable opportunities at just the right times. She escaped—although she never really will, not entirely, that sort of trauma forever shapes a mind. For every Tara, though, there are a hundred equally intelligent young people whose future will be cut short by accident, pregnancy, or just plain poverty. And for each of those there are another hundred feral others who are not bright nor talented nor promising; unthinking brutes who will continue perpetuating the cycles of ignorance cruelty and violence.

What have I gained now from reading it? What can I do, how can I help? I am now haunted by those questions, to which I fear I know the answer.

I listed to the audio version of this book. I stayed up way too late each night listening. It's difficulty to step away from. It's so interesting how your world is so affected by your family. Both for good and bad. I enjoyed Tara's brave story and I hope it can help us all grow and look at the world differently.

This was very well-written, but after learning that Annie Dillard's story about the tomcat never happened to her, I'm pretty suspicious of memoir.

It's hard for me to identify my problem is, because all the pieces are believable: manic abusive visionary father who distrusts the government, abusive brother, mother who does nothing, family who bows to the father and brother's influence. Religion that makes people do crazy things. That all makes sense.

But something doesn't feel right.

My guess is that Tara had to dissociate as a child, to play a role, and continues to do so as an adult. That probably contributes to a feeling of distance in the writing. But I find it odd that we don't know what she currently believes about religion, or how she came to have a real boyfriend without dealing with her views about women. A lot of inner thought is left unexplored.

Brutal. Just brutal.

Personally, this read was very impactful and inspiring. Learning about how someone who had it way worse than I did, at least on paper, was able to overcome all those obstacles was encouraging to say the least. I've been kind of a loner for some time and it's good to learn about someone who despite being on her own, ended up coming out of it with a victory and an amazing story to tell. 

You can tell the toll it takes on someone to be raised in such a manner. In a very personal manner, this book increased my despise for religion when it is imposed and when there seems to be no cure to the ignorance that certain precepts of it imply. I also loved the way the topic of family is portrayed and could not agree more with the fact that we sanctify it and put it on a pedestal. That should not be the case.

Seek knowledge and dispose of everything and everyone who is setting you back, regardless of who they are and the title they possess in your life.

It is definitely a difficult reading that I cannot say that I enjoyed in the literal sense of the word, however, I believe that sometimes strong books that reflect the reality that hundreds of people live are necessary; in that sense the stories of people like Tara, who are survivors, are of great value. Tara's perspective can help many people understand their own quest for peace and independence, even if that independence and peace involves distancing ourselves from our own family.
Note: If you are sensitive to verbal and/or physical violence, this book may not be for you.

Es en definitiva una lectura difícil que no puedo decir que disfruté en el sentido literal de la palabra, sin embargo, creo que en ocasiones lecturas fuertes que reflejen la realidad que viven cientos de personas son necesarias; en ese sentido las historias de gente como Tara, que son sobrevivientes, guardan gran valor. La perspectiva de Tara puede ayudar a muchas personas a entender su propia búsqueda de paz e independencia, aunque esa independencia y paz conlleve alejarse de nuestra propia familia. Nota: Si eres una persona sensible a temas de violencia verbal y/o física tal vez no sea la lectura para ti.

??????

A very well-written memoir of a life inextricably altered by natural resilience + an education. An absolute must-read.

Just great ♥️ OR

It's hard to imagine a life like Tara's. This is what makes literature interesting; stories that transport you in faraway places with very different people. But Tara's is real. She said that while she was writing her story, she wasn't sure if she was writing the account of estrangement from her family or her path to education. It was both, because they were mutually exclusive. Her radical Mormon survivalist parents raised her and her brothers in a farm in Idaho without a birth certificate, doctors, or education. Tara was supposed to be homeschooled, but she wasnt. Her father believed in government conspiracies and the End of Days. Her mother treated near-fatal injuries with essential oils. As Tara went from that environment to attending BYU and then earning a PhD from Cambridge, she slowly learned to believe in her own truth, to make her own choices. But it was a very different world her family still lived in, one that she had to give up. This is not one to be missed!

I honestly can't understand how Tara didn't die from some sort of horrible, neglectful junkyard accident as a child! A lot gorier than I expected but fascinating and inspiring. I would have loved to hear a little bit more about how she views her faith or lack thereof today. Super interesting!

This is a little hard for me to rate because I certainly am very moved by Tara Westover's journey and have a huge amount of respect for everything she overcame.

This is a great book for reading and muttering “wow that's fucked up” to yourself.

That said, it's hard for me not to compare this negatively to The Glass Castle–they're both somewhat similar stories of very difficult childhoods with charismatic but unstable fathers–but The Glass Castle is so beautifully written, and this is more a straightforward listing of events. Again–the events are extremely compelling and I have nothing but respect for Tara and her journey. Her story does make you think about education and what pieces of knowledge we tend to take for granted. (When Tara went to college, she raised her hand in a class and asked what the Holocaust was, because she genuinely did not know. I also appreciated the way she unpacked the systematic way the things left out of her extremely spotty homeschool education were designed to uphold racist/sexist/otherwise oppressive viewpoints.)

I'd definitely recommend it to people who are drawn to stories of fundamentalism/doomsday prepping etc, and also perhaps to educators.