Educated

A Memoir

By: Tara Westover

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University

“Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her 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. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

“Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

©2018 Tara Westover (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Westover is a keen and honest guide to the difficulties of filial love, and to the enchantment of embracing a life of the mind.”—The New Yorker

“An amazing story, and truly inspiring. It’s even better than you’ve heard.”—Bill Gates

Couldn't stop listening!

I finished this book in two days flat. Tara's writing transports you into the story completely. Her vulnerability and downright astonishing history of her life is unforgettable. I recommend this book for anyone struggling in relationships dominated with control and abuse. Her bravery is catching.

Gripping and insightful

The most complete and articulate description I've ever read of what it is like to come to grips with the realization of one's self existence, desires, and beliefs.
I come from a similar background. Reading this was very helpful. I found myself asking new questions and reevaluating events of my own past.

What a mess religion makes of life and limb!

What courage and pain it takes to break free from the shackles of those convicted and convinced of gobbledegook. Each painful and freeing step of a daughter is told with honesty and the growth of her self-awareness is inspiring for everyone.

Best book I've read in years

Engaging from the first word. Very refreshing to hear a story of someone overcoming adversity with true courage and strength of character told with humility and without self aggrandizement.

This is not a book I would normally have chosen, and I found it surprisingly captivating

Brilliance finds different homes.

A compelling memoir from a brilliant woman who sprang from the union of brilliant but uneducated parents in rural Idaho, torn by a family where religious fervor, male dominance, abuse, female submission (grounded in Mormon fundamentalism), and sibling friction all mixed together into a stew of self-doubt, self-discovery, and awakening. For someone unaware of Mormon tradition and culture, or it’s manifestations in rural settings like author’s home in Idaho, this story would likely be one of a woman finding her voice after freeing herself from the shackles of her father’s and brother’s religious, physical, and religious abuse and oppression. But for a male Mormon like me, it was richer, deeper, and more daunting story of how ignorance (despite natural, even brilliant, intelligence) distorts faith and religion. If Mormonism was as her father manifest it, the author could no more embrace the faith than she could endure her father. She was doubly victimized, left without her parents and also her faith, even though her memoir hardly dwells on the latter. I am saddened to think that Idaho is filled with people not unlike her father, not as naturally intelligent as he, but similarly ignorant yet faithfully embracing a Mormonism distorted by that ignorance. Hard to explain how natural intelligence and ignorance can find place in the same person, but it happens. The author’s struggle to make peace, having inherited her parents’ intelligence but discarding their ignorance, with her family makes for a story worth reading (or in my case, listening to). And in the end, once rejecting the ignorance there could be no reconciliation - the consequences of ignorance can find no place with unrestrained intelligence. They are incompatible in the end.

Emotional, Interesting, & Respectful

I loved the way that Tara Westover catalogued her memories and included footnotes to demonstrate when someone may have remembered something differently. She definitely tried to make her account as reliable as possible. Her story is amazing and it must have taken a lot of courage to publish it. It is an interesting statement on memories and the way we create them, keep them, and change them. I'm a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I appreciated her description of her relationship with that faith. I feel like she described the religion matter-of-factly and respectfully, despite her painful association to it due to her father's misinterpretation of the religion.

My Own Life

This was uncannily similar to my own life experience, with minor details excepted or changed (we are even the same age, went to BYU at the same time, even worked in the same place; except I am from Kentucky, and my mother was the character of her father). I was gripped throughout, in constant amazement at what I was hearing, frequently overcome with the emotion of knowing someone else had traveled this type of journey. Thank you, Tara Westover, for writing this.

Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking

The story is breathtaking and narrated very good. The speaker's voice is also very nice and has you hooked on it from minute one.

Outstanding

This is a compelling well written memoir. It is astounding in both the story and how it is told. Amazing

Couldn't stop listening!

Thank God for education, educators, and allies and angels who help those who need it.