Educated: A Memoir

A very interesting book, reads easily. It’s a story of coming-of-age, but of an unusual type. Traumatic childhood and traumas and abuse that was just not understood and taken as a given. She has to unlearn everything she knew before and learn all the new things in order to understand. Very powerful at the end.

I need a day or two to digest this book. Excellent. The author may find family ties are equally mean-spirited and loving throughout the world. I struggle with forgiveness, but my long suit is patience. Tara seems to have an overabundance of both. It seems writing is the best medicine for her to remain sane. You go girl!

Educated by Tara Westover left me utterly fascinated and profoundly moved. It also is inspiring and it desverves 4 out of 5 stars. Westovers story is a breathtaking testament to resilience and the transformative power of education can hold on someone. The stark contrast between her isolated, survivalist upbringing and her journey to academic excellence is both shocking and inspiring. It gives you that since of hope if she can go to Cambridge and get a degree, with absolutely no priory schooling experience. It means anything is possible if you put your mind and you're all into it. I was struck by her courage to confront her past and challenge the beliefs she was raised with. Which I think personally is something for me would be extremely hard. I am always looking to impress my parents and make them happy. So, it inspired me that she didn't need validation or have to prove a point to anyone but herself. The raw honesty of her writing makes you reflect on the complexities of family loyalty and the journey of self-discovery. It’s a powerful reminder of how education can not only change our circumstances but also reshape who we are as people. Westover does an amazing job reeling the readers into her work with imagery and details concerning her life. She in a way puts you in her shoes and lets you take a walk in her life and her journey to becoming a person she never knows she could be.

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.

Educated is an absolutely stunning memoir that left me speechless. Tara Westover’s journey from a survivalist upbringing with no formal education to earning a Ph.D. is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Her storytelling is raw, emotional, and deeply moving.The book is a powerful testament to resilience, the pursuit of knowledge, and the courage to break free from a difficult past. It made me appreciate the power of education and self-discovery in a whole new way.A must-read for anyone who loves memoirs, stories of perseverance, or books that challenge your perspective on life.