Educated: A Memoir

This amazing book, destined to be a classic, kept me up at night and then well into the following day. It should be required reading for courses in psychology , counseling and family therapy. The memoir is of a young girl in a family of 7 children in a survivalist Mormon family. The patriarch was mentally ill, possibly bipolar. He used his extreme interpretation of Mormonism to emotionally abuse, bully and intimidate each member of the family including his long suffering and submissive wife. He was "better" than the rest whom he called gentiles and Illiterati. By claiming a direct line to God, the father achieved a power over his family that defies the imagination. He .had bouts of mania when he took chances with their safety and well being. But God would protect them.. Repeatedly he refused common sense protection of his family. God would protect them. His depressive bouts left him bedridden while requiring the family to take him to see his parents in Arizona to recover. He was catered to and idolized. Defying him was defying God. Women, especially, came in for his scorn. They were little more than indentured servants. As with so many of these male dominated groups, the women were perceived as temptresses and whores. Freud would have had a field day with that perception. The mother appeared to have pseudo insight but was incapable of supporting her children in the face of incomprehensible emotional and physical abuse.; The existence of this family within a Mormon community yet so outside the boundaries of reasonable Mormon tenants begs the question: what responsibility does the broader community have to protect vulnerable children? This is not about Mormonism but a small community and extended family in Idaho that turned away and ignored neglect and abuse when children did not have birth certificates, were not schooled even at home, were not immunized, not taken to doctors, were repeatedly seriously injured, were dressed in filthy rags, and were told the Government and Medical Establishment was the enemy... The enemy was actually within that home. The enemy was this very mentally ill and destructive father. I think of the Turpin family, abusing their children but hidden. This family was neglectful in plain sight. The litany of serious injuries sustained by the children was chilling as was the father's cavalier dismissal of their safety. But willful neglect was one thing, sustained and brutal sibling abuse is quite another. All dysfunctional families have lies they tell themselves, their teachers, authority figures, extended family etc. e;g;, yes, we are home - schooled (not). They have secrets. . But the worst secret and lie that persisted like a rotting cancer was the denial of severe physical abuse inflicted on several of the siblings over the years by one extraordinarily disturbed son. The son would have murderous rages and then the apologies would start...the injured sibling was forced to forgive. Classic spousal abuse but in this case it was a sibling causing the abuse who should have been removed from the family, placed in a treatment program. Instead no one talked about it, the siblings didn't tell each other what had happened until they compared notes as adults and most horrific of all, the parents denied it happened, demanded "proof" and allowed this monster of a son to continue abusing girlfriends, his wife, his dog Diego.(I would have had him locked up for life for just this part of the story). .. In the end, the parents and this sibling bullied the family into staying silent. Only the daughter, with great effort, recognized what was going on. She made many attempts to connect with her parents but they pulled closer into their delusions. This daughter, extraordinarily intelligent and determined escapes, becomes well educated but pays a price, doubting herself up until almost the end, The writing was clear and perceptive. The author has survived but the story is still chilling. Sometimes children from an abusive background only survive with a "parentectomy". I do wonder if the story is finished. The sadistic bully of a son now has a family of his own (wife and two children) that he has shown himself willing to abuse.

I decided to read Educated after so many suggestions, the first pages I felt a little lost because I really didn't know anything about the book or the story, I went in completely blinded and I'm so happy that I did.. This is the real story of Tara Westover a story that really captivate me and made me feel so many emotions the author was describing, her sadness, her rage and even when she couldn't talk I felt the desperation for her to open up and finally say something about what was happening, also the heartwrenching moments when she wanted to confide in someone and found herself alone without not knowing what to do. especially her relationship with her mother I totally saw myself in that picture. "When my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she’d been, she became that mother for the first time." so many great things to say about this book but what really captivated me and made me feel hope is no matter how your world supposed to be, no matter if you are navigating in a world that was created by your parents and beliefs.. your true calling will always make it through, no matter how much those around you try to stop you and make you believe that maybe you're not good enough or that the life you chose is not the one you really want or deserve.. when something is for you it will be and it will find its way no matter how much the things around you or the people around you are trying to do it so.. "Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind." Educated really made me feel hope, to meet people like Dr.Runciman and Dr.Kerry I wish there were more people like them, people who will embrace you and see your true potential and help you achieve to be the best version of yourself.. I can't recall how many times in my life I have searched for someone like them. someone who will finally see the light and push me true.. "It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you, I had written in my journal. But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that." So many great people surrounded Tara her brothers were amazing I really love Tyler since the very first chapters and then Tom and Richard I'm glad they were there to help.. and it pains me to see how many deserted Taras claims without even giving her the chance to have a place in her life.. "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." Overall it was an amazing book with so many emotions, that showed me how much we can achieve no matter how many NO's and walls life and circumstances are puttying us in our paths. so happy for Tara to be able to achieve so much. I hope one day your other siblings finally see you from who you're rather than the lies or the picture they had created in their minds.

The book Educated by Tara Westover, is very interesting, attention grabbing throughout the book, and touching; but, I felt the ending was more rushed than the rest of the story. As a college kid, I understand the nervousness about going into college, but could never understand what she went through because of her background. As well as everything that led up to her even thinking about going to college, and she did it with little to no support from her family. This story does amazing job on showing not everyone's families or lives are "normal". All in all, this was a really good book, but I felt some parts were more rushed than others.

I got this book through Amazon Audible and it is such a great book very inspiring. I’m so nice to hear the story of another woman that is very strong and intelligent.

I could not put this book down. It’s haunting, melodic, astonishing and beautifully raw! It’s engrossing and a testament to human resilience! It’s also an incredibly compassionate take on the complexity of mental illness and those impacted by it. It’s must read.

There are two types of popular books, one is the kind that gets a lot of hype and fanfare and sits on bestseller lists for months but ultimately falls short of all the acclaim. Second is the kind that simply lives up to your greatest expectations -- even if you were skeptical of all the aforementioned hype and fanfare to begin with. Educated is solidly, well written and exquisitely told story of survival and ultimately, success. I was skeptical because Educated stares at me from The New York Times, week after week on the bestseller list—everyone seems to have either heard of it, has read it or wants to read it. How can it be that good? Or is it just good, in the common mainstream way that some books are? But Tara Westover has written a powerful and heart-searing story about the abuse and dysfunction she experienced growing up with her wildly eccentric and religious family. Her upbringing is a far cry from what a normal childhood looks like; Tara never went to public schools and yet managed to study at Cambridge and complete her PHD at Harvard. Who wouldn’t want such a success story? But more on that in a moment. Tara Westover’s emotional story broke my heart even as she tells it in a very matter of fact style. She’s raw and honest about her own self and shortcomings, she turns the lens on herself many times in the book, shining a light on her own bad behaviors and choices. Her story is shocking, infuriating and at times just plain, disturbing, but I couldn’t stop reading it. I didn’t feel it was redundant at all, although you can say, many of the same bad things happen to her over and over again; car accidents, freak accidents in the junkyard, physical and verbal abuse from her older brother and worst of all, the sheer lack of protection she had from her parents. The hardest thing to grasp about Tara’s story is how easily her parents did not protect her from so much, time and time again. To come from all that and to be as articulate as she is and as grounded as she seems is astonishing. Just pull up an interview of Tara Westover talking to Oprah or Ellen DeGeneres and you’ll find yourself thinking what a lovely person she appears to be. She doesn’t seem fueled with anger or overcome with emotion, she holds herself upright gracefully and tells her truth, straight. She doesn’t even talk badly about all of the ones who have hurt her so deeply. I believe that is a testament to who Tara Westover is as a person. As far as her education, I read the many naysayer comments barking about her “too good to be true” Ivy League education and dismissing or denying how she could have not gone to public school and gotten a high school education before going off to these colleges based on what little education and home schooling she did have. I admit, it does sound too good to be true…but in some cases, some people just have what it takes; the talent, the brains, the drive and determination and the luck to get far in life. I think Tara always had it in her and the people who met her, the bishop and the professors who supported and encouraged her, felt very strongly about what Tara was capable of and I think they helped her as much as they could along the way. I think they wrote recommendation letters, persuaded her numerous times to apply for grants and funding and to take her knowledge as far as it could go. I think it was easy to see in Tara, a success story of sorts. She’s someone who transformed themselves into who she was meant to be, someone who could change her life (if not her story or her past) and transcend even her wildest dreams. I admire Tara and her success and applaud her for telling such a raw story—even if it meant risking estrangement from the people she loves. Tara Westover has written a brilliant story and proves what a good writer she is. A good story in the hands of a bad writer would not end up being as beloved and popular as Educated is. As far as I can see, she was meant to have all her success.

A very serious book. Her upbringing was very unconventional, sometimes hard to read. She was a survivor and it's amazing how she educated herself later in life. I would recommend this book, if you like memoirs and don't mind reading about dysfunctional families.

There's no doubt Tara Westover is a talented writer, although also an uneven one. Her prose, like the book itself, has incredibly powerful and lyrical sections, paragraphs and sentences, some of which stopped me cold in admiration, intermixed with far more pedestrian parts. It seemed as though the closer she got to the "end" of the story, the more rushed the prose. The last sections felt rushed and didn't have the level of emotion and insight she'd brought to the earlier sections. That's one of the main reasons I struggled with a rating for this memoir and would ultimately give it a 3.5 or thereabouts. I don't doubt its veracity, although it has odd anomalies that cry out for more commentary and explanation. You think, after the early sections, that this family is very isolated, living if not off the grid, very close to that. Then, casually, you learn there's a computer, a television, a telephone and other accoutrements of modern life. Was access to these restricted? We don't learn that, but it does beg the question of why Tara came to BYU with such a deficit of modern knowledge. She had plenty of contact with other (presumably) more worldly kids as a teenager, especially acting in the local plays/musicals. It seems odd this didn't open her eyes to something, yet this is a topic on which she is mum. These gaps and omissions in the story do affect the reader's experience, maybe not to the point of disbelieving it, but certainly to the point of wondering why she isn't as forthcoming here as she is with all of the hideous accidents that befall family members. After a while, I yearned to hear less about these and more about how she felt/reacted to daily events both before and after she left Idaho for her formal education. I believe all/most of what she recounts actually happened since no one has really debunked anything meaningful in the book and it would be surprising if her publisher hadn't done a thorough vetting to avoid lawsuits and negative PR. But this is really the story of her development as her own person -- able to recognize the collective madness of which she was once a part -- and knowing more about her teenage years and the day-to-day life she got to BYU and Cambridge would have added substantively to the story. We hear so little about her days in England and that seemed a huge and curious omission. How interesting it would have been to learn how she adapted; her fears and hopes for belonging or being shunned in some ways. Yet we get none of that. By the time I got to the last section -- her parents' attempts to "exorcise" her demons, her year of breakdown and her subsequent recovery -- it all came out oddly rushed, without the insight, details and visual acuity she brought to the earlier years. All this said, this is still a powerful story and definitely worth reading. I hope she goes on to write more and share more about the decade in which her life turned 180 degrees and what that felt like. That is a story that could be as interesting as the litany of crazy accidents and bizarre recoveries.