Book Blog #271: Educated by Tara Westover

Title: Educated

Author: Tara Westover

# of Pages: 334 (hardback)

Genre: Nonfiction, Autobiography, Memoir

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis: Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Review: This book was not what I was expecting at all.

I knew the basic premise; Mormon girl is born into a radical family, doesn't get a formal education, and then somehow she is able to go to college and excel academically. As per the title of the book, I assumed it would be a story focusing more on the struggle of being able to achieve higher education without any formal education. However, I was surprised to find that the struggle she focused on was with her family, being able to separate her goals and beliefs from her family's, and becoming her own person. 

I wavered between giving this book four stars or five. Initially, I was set on giving it four stars because while the story she was telling was interesting, it was a bit of a slow start; a lot of character development for each member of Westover's family and setting the scene with her parents' radical beliefs. What made me give it the final star was how gripping the rest of the book was; I couldn't put it down today. When Westover grows older and less complacent to her parents, it is easier to empathize with her. I felt STRESSED for her, and every family conflict she described made me feel the frustration, sadness, and fear she must have been feeling. Whenever a book makes me feel like this, I applaud it. 

Several times while I was reading this book, the song Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story from Hamilton (I know this might sound irrelevant but bear with me). With all the gaslighting she endures from the people she is suppose to love and trust, Westover is using this book as an opportunity to reclaim the narrative. Everyone involved seems to be an unreliable narrator, Tara included (and she admits this herself throughout the book), and although Westover does her best to compile different perspectives together to form as close to the truth as possible in the story of her life, the reader is left to try to decipher what really happened and to make their own evaluations of each person's character. 

One thing I really loved about this book is no one seems truly bad to the core. In the end we are all human, and Westover recognizes this. Even the people who have had a overall negative impact on her life (effectively, the antagonists of the story) did not necessarily have bad intent. Even those with bad intentions had their good moments.

Something I wanted more of was a deeper dive into the relationships she formed/strengthened after she got into college. There seemed to be many people who supported her in finding herself (i.e. friends, professors, relatives), but their character development was weak. Additionally, there were many lines that were paraphrased, but I questioned whether lines were more eloquently stated in this book than reality. For written correspondence, it would have nice to get the direct quote because words/syntax can real reveal who the speaker is and what their character is.

Overall, it was very much worth the read. I would recommend this book to anyone interested.