I was sent a copy of Educated by Tara Westover to read and review by NetGalley.
This memoir is totally astonishing, I could not put it down.  You are aware that people have very different lives to yourself, but this really is a whole world away from my own experience.  The author has made the book feel somewhat like a novel but the incredible reality is that it is true.  It is by turn inspiring, terrifying and that word again – astonishing.  One woman’s life growing up in rural Idaho, yearning for more.  Beautifully written, with some of the content not so easy to digest, but to me a very worthwhile read.

'Educated' is a strange little book. While reading, you spend much of your time wondering whether any of this could truly be real, and yet the writer speaks with such eloquence and wit that you're stuck between convinced and believing it all as a fairytale. Straddling every subject from education, to grief, to religion and the pursuit of knowledge. It's a book that advocates learning as much as it debates it. Honestly, I did enjoy this book, but perhaps not as much as I thought I was going to. Often times, things were a little dry and repetitive, and the parts that focused on the more interesting parts of her life were very quickly glossed over. Even though Westover mentions at the beginning of the book that it's not one about Mormonism, the religion plays such a heavy part in her life that it's impossible to avoid. I liked it okay, but I don't think it's quite for me. I can see the merits, and I'm sure many people would love it, but for me, it fell short a bit.

Difficult to read but no less compelling for it, the story of Tara's fundamental Mormon upbringing is as devastating as her ability to rise beyond it is astounding.
 Fundamental religion fascinates me as I struggle to comprehend how people's faith can be so absolute, in spite of seemingly everything else that seems to pick holes in their beliefs. Even as a grown woman, Tara's struggle to reconcile what she is learning and indeed, who she is and her place within the world,with her indoctrination as a child, is heartbreaking but captivating. 
This isn't necessarily a book to be enjoyed (there are quite vivid depictions of really appalling abuse and injury) but it is a book that will leave you overawed and with immense respect for the woman who faced these adversities and the ostracisation from her family, as she endeavoured to discover the woman she was more than capable of being. A truly stunning memoir.

Remarkable book which describes a dysfunctional but all too believable upbringing in Mormon USA.  Westover is excellent at describing the brutality of her childhood and escape through university. The descriptions of her culture shock when she starts to study are excellent and, although as other reviewers have pointed out it inevitably loses some of its power once she gets to Cambridge, its still a very affecting book.

I found this book rather inaccessible which was disappointing after all that I had read about it in advance. Having worked in British schools I was hoping to learn much about education in America but I found Tara Westover's book difficult to engage with which was a shame.

A hard read but inspiring. Tara battled to overcome her hard upbringing to successfully educate herself.

It's pretty rare that I need 'time off' to cool down after a book but I definitely did after reading Educated. It was a tough read but it was impossible to put down. I read it in 3 days and it stayed with me much longer.

I truly love reading memoirs about different people and I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read this one. Tara's story is gripping but so important to hear about.

Educated is a book about Tara's life. She grew up in Idaho, in a Mormon family with her two parents, brothers and sisters. Her family situation was tough: her father spent most of his adult life hoarding food supplies, guns & fuel as he was convinced that the 'days of abomination' would come. He was paranoid and didn't believe in medicine nor the government, never seeing any doctors for his family or himself and instead chosing to rely on herbs & potions made by his wife. Furthermore, he didn't get birth certificates for his younger children and kept them out of school. 
Tara's days were spent mostly at home either helping out in her father's junkyard or assisting her mother in making homemade remedies with herbs and flowers. 

However, this didn't stop Tara to move forward. As a teen, she decided to educate herself through books and managed to pass the exam for college all by herself. Her early days away from home were tough, to say the least. Despite everything, she made a life for herself. Not only did she attend Cambridge but she also went to Harvard and later on got her PHD back in Cambridge. 

After reading Educated, I am truly in awe of Tara's courage, perseverance and independance.. Her story is worth reading but also sharing with your loved ones.

Thank you Random House & Net Galley for such a great read!

TARA: TRUTH OR TRUMPERY?

In the era of Trumpism, nothing seems too extreme to be true and Tara Westover’s memoir describing her rural Idaho upbringing in a survivalist Mormon household is nothing if not extreme. Tara’s father is a zealous bully who dismisses the very idea of Health & Safety practices in his hazardous scrap business. Her mother is an illegal midwife and herbalist who acquiesces to her husband. And one of Tara’s older brothers, Shawn, is a violent psychotic whose hold over his sister is physical as well as mental. From a non-schooled childhood, she ends up with a doctorate from Cambridge (and a best-seller under her belt).

The first half is quite absorbing: "As a child, I'd been aware that although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. They believed in modesty; we practiced it. They believed in God's power to heal; we left our injuries in God's hands. They believed in preparing for the Second Coming; we were actually prepared."

However.

As the catalogue of appalling accidents and violent episodes start to mount, I began to feel a kind of creeping doubt. And when Mother’s herbal recipe brings her burnt-to-a-crisp husband back from the dead, my credulity was stretched to the limit. Yet this is not what made me question the validity of Educated as a memoir. It is Tara’s baffled acceptance of her acutely dysfunctional family in the face of her blistering intelligence that finally dared me to whisper: could this be ‘fake news’?

My thanks to Random House for the review copy courtesy of NetGalley.

The getting of wisdom – how education, eventually, trumped rampant bigotry and child abuse!

First of all, this is a brilliantly written memoir of an awful upbringing and how the author, eventually, overcoming all the odds, escaped.  It chronicles, in often painful and repellent detail, the outrageous excesses of violence; physical, emotional and mental in nature, that a tyrannical father either perpetrated or allowed to be perpetrated on a defenceless daughter, whose mother meekly acquiesced, so in thrall was she to her fanatical husband, who ruled his family like an old testament patriarch, convinced he had a personal hot line to the Almighty.  

There is, of course, a sweet irony in the fact that, almost miraculously, she managed to save herself from a lifetime of subjugation amounting almost to slavery.  But more than just a memoir, this is a testament to the character, fortitude and doggedness, that enabled her, from somewhere, to summon the strength required to break free of the stultifying bonds of superstition, fear and ignorance that brainwashing from birth can instil.  Moreover, it illustrates, in graphic detail, the critical importance of liberal educational ideals at a time in which, increasingly, reason, rationality, pluralism and democracy are being called into question as the bedrocks of western civilization.

In the unlikely event that you ever wondered what a mash-up between ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Educating Rita’ might turn out like, this book would be it!

As a teacher,I was fascinated to find out how someone who received no formal education managed to self educate to a standard which allowed her to go to Cambridge.
It's a grim read,about growing up in a  dysfunctional family with very few redeeming characteristics,but in the end I really admired the way the author was determined to get away from her family and move on with her life.

Educated is a powerful testament of how we can choose to stop being defined by our past.

It is a thought provoking memoir that left me with a strong feeling of unease long after I finished reading it.

Its main theme is privilege. We don’t get to choose circumstances we are born into.

It also explores belonging, shame, forgiveness as well as the ability to become an observer, rather than a victim of your past.

Sometimes, to break a thought pattern, we need a perspective. An ability to distance ourselves from our emotional involvement, to see things for what they are – i.e. to distinguish between facts vs. our opinions / stories about them.

Westover did this brilliantly in her raw memoir.

You can see her coming-of-age story through her mature observer’s eyes. You can feel how much pain she must have bravely experienced to get to the point where she is now.

Her writing evoked a strong emotion in me. As I immersed myself in Educated, I started experiencing deep gratitude; for being born into a loving and nurturing family; for them enabling me to question the world; for them loving me for who I was, no conditions attached.

“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”

Imagine growing up in a family that completely cuts you out of society.

Imagine not having friends, not knowing any facts about the world you live in. 

The only truth you know is the one your psychologically ill father tells you:

“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.”

Imagine being physically abused whilst thinking it may be your fault, that there must something wrong with you.

Imagine feeling like you don’t belong anywhere else but to your highly dysfunctional family.

Not having to experience any of those points above, that is privilege.

I am so impressed with Westover’s courage.

Her ability to recognise that she could want more for herself.

Her willingness to stand on her own even though she, like majority of us, yearned to belong.

That curiosity that lead her to define her own life and own her story.

Just bravo, nothing less than that.

Possible triggers: domestic abuse, and abuse in general. This book is quite graphical and left me disturbed, if you are sensitive to these topics, please take care of yourself.

The author of this memoir grew up in a rural area in Idaho.  Her parents were strict Mormon’s and her father  was paranoid, volatile and spent his time either working in his scrap yard or preparing for the end of the world.   With gender roles strictly enforced (unless, as we later discover, it suits Tara’s father that she step out of the kitchen and help him in some extremely physical, and dangerous, labour), her mother is submissive and prefers to ignore what she does not want to see.   Pushed by her husband into helping as a midwife on the mountain community,  with every act her father wills as ‘divine,’ and so not easily rejected, she eventually embraces healing.  In a way, it is useful that Tara’s mother does become a healer, as the family do not believe in traditional medicine.  Or education, which is, of course, central to this book. 

Tara is one of seven siblings – five boys and two girls.   To her, it almost seems as though there are two families within her own.  The three oldest boys received a rudimentary education, before being pulled out of school and either quarrelling, or working for, their father.  The four younger children never set foot in a classroom  and, while their mother insists they are being  home schooled, her father only really insists that she learn Morse Code.    The issues with medicine also have terrible ramifications – while it may be acceptable to take a herbal remedy for a cold, or headache, the mix of a junkyard, complete with machinery, plus the fact their father seems to want to drive everyone cross country, at night, with no seatbelts, leads to some really traumatic scenes.  This book is not for the faint hearted.

At some point, Tara decides she wishes to go to school.  Along the way, she suffers various setbacks.  She has no understanding of basic subjects, such as maths or history.   Her parents feel betrayed by her decision and she lacks the funds that she needs to help her study.   While she does go away to college and, eventually, to both Cambridge and Harvard, she continually feels a pull back to Bucks Peak and her family.  However, as well as her difficult relationship with her father, there is the ominous presence of her older brother, Sean.   Sean is demanding, difficult, aggressive, controlling and violent.  As she grows, Tara questions her role in her family,  her beliefs and her past.  Is educating herself worth it, if she loses her ties to her childhood, home and family?   What, in fact, will her education cost her?

This is a very moving and well written memoir and I applaud the author for her bravery in writing it.  As someone who has spent most of their life reading, the thought of Tara’s rebellion against her enforced ignorance is extremely impressive.  Her story is liberating, empowering, impressive and inspiring.   She fought against the life that had been written for her and she changed her story.  Tara had no idea about literature, but she was forging her own path and re-writing her future.  I am deeply humbled by this book, which is one I recommend highly.   I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

Educated was just mind-blowing. It was a book that, no matter how hard I try, I will never have the grasp on words needed to be able to explain all the things that it has made me feel. I have always believed that one of the biggest benefits of reading is that people get to experience lives that are completely separate from their own - it goes a long way towards creating empathy, breaking down barriers and allowing people to see the world from the perspectives of other people; all things that are desperately needed in this increasingly numb, disconnected world.
This memoir told a person’s story that is as far away from mine own as it gets.
Tara Westover has lived a life that I had never considered a possibility. She was raised completely off the grid, something that I never even realised was a reality anymore, in a family whose father-dominated belief system and his rejection of the government, his obsession with the end of the days, and his warped understanding of the Mormon faith controlled every aspect of their lives. I spent hours mulling over whether her upbringing could be considered to be a cult, and why shouldn’t it? I suppose that from my cushy position in my bed in Cardiff, cults just feel so separate, so alien just in their most simple form - it is impossibly terrifying to think about the person assuming the cult leader position being their father.
And it can only make the belief system all the more pervasive, all-consuming. Tara Westover speaks extensively as to how the perspectives of her family when it comes to the female body, clothing and purity, continue to permeate throughout her years away from them and how, assumptions that they had that she has now learnt to be unfounded, still loom at the back of her mind. Distancing yourself from a cult is supposed to be near-impossible, and I suspect that difficulty only grows when the cult takes on a form so central to life as the family.
It takes Tara Westover years of tenacity, strength and perseverance for her to become the astounding person that she is today, and her’s is a powerful story unlike any I have ever read. Just go. Go now and read it - I assure you, your life will be better for it.

Educated tells the story of Tara Westover’s childhood and adolescence growing up in an isolated and strict household. Her family are Mormon, but under her father’s intense rule they are set apart from the rest of the Mormon community who he still sees as immoral. Kept away from school and with a minimal education, Tara is trapped in an often brutal existence limited to the confines of her father’s scrapyard and ruled by his intense and paranoid moods. As she grows older, she begins to educate herself and seek out knowledge, despite her father’s fury and the abuse of one of her older brothers. Her family dynamic is grimly fascinating and, although parts of the book are deeply harrowing, the message - that seeking an education can free you from the deepest of prisons - is powerful and uplifting. It’s incredibly well written, raw and beautifully honest.

I find when I quite like a book but a few little things bother me, I'm much more likely to write a long detailed review. The same when I detest a book, as I have to go through every awful thing about it. But with Educated, which I absolutely adored, I'm actually finding it hard to write this. At the same time, everyone in the world has to read it so I'll never run out of people to discuss it with.

It's one of those books that you want to talk about constantly, either with people who have read it or at people who haven't. I've just been badgering everyone I know about it for the last few weeks. It's brilliantly written, of course, but the sort of writing that takes a step back and lets the story sing straight to the reader. And the story is jaw-dropping—I spent a lot of time reading it on the tube flinching, my hand going to my mouth, as Tara's family car crashed or her brother sustained another major head injury or her wild horse bucked her off and her foot got caught in the stirrup.

As the book ends [with Tara still estranged from her family (hide spoiler)], I actually said "no!" out loud as I realised I'd read the last page. Just. What a book. One of those that it's impossible to overhype. I hope it wins every award possible.

Tara Westover is a great writer - and 'Educated' is a superb memoir, one that deals with her harrowing upbringing in a devout Mormon family, living on a remote Idaho mountain.

Throughout her formative years, Westover experiences abuse at the hands of one of her older brothers - and this abuse, largely physical but also mental, is shocking. Alongside this, her father's obsession with the 'end of days' affects everything that the family do. Some of the family's children commit themselves to the parents' fundamentalist views; others, such as Tara, are more determined to follow a different path, although it's no mean feat. In fact, the Buck Mountain home draws Tara back, magnet-like, and one can't help wonder why, particularly when she knew what lay in wait. It must be the pull of the family.

Westover didn't have any formal education until she was 17; she got a Ph.D from Cambridge at 27. It's truly amazing how a girl who essentially grew up isolated and treated horrifically did so well, academically. It's not as if she had a huge amount of self-belief, either - there are many times when the writer wants to throw in the towel and go home, to her bipolar father (who has many accidents and survives against all odds) and her mother, a pseudo midwife who later makes the family extremely rich by building up a business dealing in health potions.

This is a heart-rending and brilliant read. I am pleased that Tara has left so much of her old life behind - I only hope what lies ahead for her brings much greater things, things that demonstrate further what a great writer she is.

I will be telling everyone I know that reads to pick up a copy of this book. Tara's story has stayed in my mind since finishing this earlier in the week. Not always an easy read but thoroughly compulsive. I just needed desperately to know how Tara got on, whether she gained the education and escaped her family ties after working so hard to do so. Scenes involving one of her older brothers, Shawn were desperate - On more than one occasion, I found myself gasping at the violence and brutality of her life working on the mountain.

Tara's story is one of growing up in a strict Mormon household in the remote area of Idaho.
Her parents are survivalists and so she spends her time rotating and bottling food in their belief the family would be unaffected should the World of men fail. Her strict disciplinarian father does not allow the children access to hospitals, school or doctors and their births are not recorded.
Instead her time is spent working in the family business, home schooling and listening to teachings. 
Tara however decides to break free and realises that education is her way out of this constrained life.
Tara goes out on to achieve amazing things educationally whilst battling with the guilt of being disloyal to her parents and faith. But ultimately it is her education that gives her the strength to take a different path in life. Its a harrowing and painful tale but then what shines through is the coming of age, self-determined and uplifting aspects. I book I would highly recommend.
My thanks go to the author, publishers and Netgalley in providing the arc of this book in return for a honest review.

I have never felt so divided on a book before or had such trouble reviewing it!

Educated had almost slipped entirely under my radar. I hadn’t seen too many people talking about it and I never took the time to look at the summary either. It wasn’t until I read What’s Nonfiction?‘s review of Educated that I paid attention to it. Although I’m quite conflicted about how I feel about the book I am really glad that I made the decision to read it in the end.

Part of me absolutely loved Educated and the Anthropologist in me was completely captivated by Tara’s story. The life that Tara lived as a child was almost unrecognizable to me yet heart-wrenchingly believable. She grew up with 6 brothers and sisters on a mountainside in Idaho to religious fundamentalist parents. At first, it doesn’t seem too bad. Her older brothers were allowed to attend school and although their life was definitely different from other children’s it wasn’t anything too alarming. But as her father’s paranoia about the government and the Illuminati begin to completely take hold of his mind things begin to slide very rapidly. The children are pulled out of school and “home-schooled”, and by home-schooled, I mean that they read the Bible. They are expected to work in their father’s junkyard and put in highly, highly dangerous situations which result in serious injuries. Doctors and hospitals are part of the Illuminati so all of the family are treated at home by their mother who uses herbal and energy remedies, even the case of third-degree burns and bodily dismemberment. The girls are expected to wear clothes that cover their entire body, not to make friends with boys, and are barely even let out of the house unsupervised. Nobody in the family really washes or cleans. And Tara is constantly gaslighted and emotionally abused by her older brother, father, and mother.

There were times when Educated was very hard to read, times when it made me so angry that someone was subjected to that kind of treatment, and times when I felt like I just couldn’t continue to witness what had actually happened to the author. But, like watching a car crash, I also couldn’t put the book down. Especially when Tara’s life starts to tear apart when she begins to engage with education and she is finally exposed to an entirely different world. Following in the steps of one of her older brothers, Tyler, she passed the ACT on her second try and secures her place at college. There are many, many awkward recollections of her first foray into college education, such as the time when her peers thought she was mocking the Holocaust because she didn’t know what it was and the pervasive voice of her father echoing in her mind when she sees how her fellow female classmates dress and act. Before long though, it seems as though Tara’s first steps into education are like a duck taking to water. She begins to not only pass but excel in her classes. She receives top grades. She gets into Cambridge University and eventually goes on to complete a PhD. But, this comes at a great cost for Tara as, when Tara is unable to give up her ambition for education, her family turn their back on her, spread lies about her and she even receives murder threats from one of her brothers.

This was the divisive moment for me in the book and it seems that this is a moment shared by many other reviewers and readers of the book. There are many things which aren’t fully described in the book which raise questions in my mind. I would be very reluctant to say that I don’t believe what happened to Tara because I do. Her experiences with her family, the abuse she endured, the trauma that followed her all the way to England are very authentic and there’s no doubt in my mind that she lives through those things. The thing I have trouble with is following her educational story.

Maybe it’s just that many things get left unsaid, but I find it hard to imagine jumping from someone who had never read a textbook in her life to securing a PhD at Cambridge University. There are aspects of her educational experiences that just don’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Of course, it could just be that she was a genius the entire time but her gifts were never uncovered until she was granted the right to education but two of her brothers also go on to receive PhD’s as well. I was born and raised in London, England. I’m from a poor part of London, raised in a single parent family and failed school. I managed to achieve a First in my degree in History and Anthropology despite all the obstacles I’ve had to overcome to get there but there was a very traceable journey that lead me to this point? I cannot even begin to fathom a rural American girl who could barely read managing to get in Cambridge University, one of the most elite and prestigious universities in the entire world. Cambridge is pretty much the definition of an ivory tower… and yet, Tara manages to not only become educated but manages to get into such an ivory tower.

Call me bitter, call me jaded, call me jealous, but there is just something about this journey that doesn’t sit quite right with me. I can’t put my finger on it and I can’t really explain it but there’s just something about it that doesn’t settle in my mind.

I really, really enjoyed reading the first 2/3’s of Educated, but like many other reviewers, the last part of the book just wasn’t as strong. The writing was captivating, her story really pulled me in and I just couldn’t put the book down. But past that point, I just couldn’t enjoy the book in the same way. Partly because I was finding it hard to deal with all of the questions floating around in my mind, and partly because the writing just wasn’t as great towards the end of the book. It’s really hard to rate Educated because of this reason and because it is a memoir rather than a work of fiction, but ultimately I decided to rate it 3.5 stars. If I were to rate the first part of the book it definitely would have received a 4 from me but given the answered questions and feeling of dissatisfaction I was left with at the end, I had to bump it down half a star.

Thank you so much to Random House UK for approving me to read and review Educated via Netgalley.

Tara Westover’s memoir of growing up in a rural Idaho community comes across as unstinting in its honesty and unsparing in its chronicling of the harshness of life on the mountain. Families are always complicated and Westover’s seems more complicated than most, but she tells the story of her transformation from a girl who has never been to school to a high-achieving academic eloquently and without self-pity. Educated is an engrossing read, but although there are supportive teachers who see in her what she doesn’t see in herself, and moments of clarity about how her sense of self has been defined by the abuse she has suffered, for me the final third of the book documents the steps in her transformation rather than explaining exactly how she became ‘educated’. Having said that, this is a very rewarding read that offers real insight into a range of sensitive issues, including abusive relationships, mental illness, survivalism, religion and what makes us who we are.