• Educated

  • A Memoir
  • By: Tara Westover
  • Narrated by: Julia Whelan
  • Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (124,540 ratings)

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Educated  By  cover art

Educated

By: Tara Westover
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
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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

Featured Article: The Best Memoirs to Make You Laugh, Cry, and Think


The memoir, as an art form, is one of the most difficult and complex to pull off. That’s why these titles are so impressive: not only are they excellent works in their own right, but they’ve achieved cultural acclaim, resonating with listeners of different ages, genders, races, religions, and identities. Often narrated by the authors themselves, these audiobooks allow listeners to be immersed in each story and feel all of the raw and unfiltered emotion that comes with them.

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The Other Side of Idaho's Mountains

"Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs."
- Tara Westover, Educated: A Memoir

This book feels like it was written by a sister, a cousin, a niece. Tara Westover grew up a few mountains over from my dad's Heglar ranch. I don't know her. Don't know her family. She grew up about 70-80+ miles South East as the crow flies, but realistically, it was a 1.5 hours drive difference, and a whole planet of Mormonism over.

I didn't grow up in Idaho. I was born there and returned there yearly. But this book is filled with the geography, culture, behaviors, mountains, religion, schools, and extremes I understand. She is writing from a similar, and often shared space. I didn't just read this book, I felt it, on every page.

This book reads like a modern-day, Horatio Alger + 'The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography'. However, it isn't just a book about how a girl with little formal education from a small town in Idaho makes it to Cambridge. It is also a tale of escape, and a historiography. Westover is using her own life to do a popular memory study on herself. She is looking at how she viewed her religion, her background, her parents, and her education. She explores how those memories and narratives change and reorient based upon proximity to her family and her father.

I bought a copy and before I even read it, I gave it to my father to read (He grew up in Heglar, ID). Then I bought another couple and yesterday and today my wife and I raced to finish it. We bored our kids talking about it over two dinners. We both finished it within minutes of each other tonight.

Tara Westover's memoir hit me hard because of the struggle she has owning her own narrative. Through many vectors I related to her (we both graduated from BYU with Honors, were both were from Idaho, both have preppers in the family). My family, while sharing similar land, a similar start, and a similar undergraduate education, however, are not Tara's. And that is what made this memoir so compelling. It was like reading a Dickens novel, but one that was set in your neighborhood. It was moving, sad, and tremendous. In the end, I was attracted by how close the story felt, but I was also VERY grateful her story wasn't THAT close.

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828 people found this helpful

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Disturbing

There are parts of this book that will haunt me: Animal cruelty, physical and mental abuse. However, the problems are all too prevalent. I weep and pray for the characters. I need a pick-me-up after this one.

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Extreme patriarchy, brainwashing, and violence

This is not really a book about homeschooling or mormons. It's about growing up and out of an extremely patriarchal, violent, and dysfunctional family. It's about the slow process and journey that one takes when leaving an abusive relationship, questioning yourself every step of the way but slowly finding independence. Tara was luckily able to gain her independence through her extensive college education.
This is a really difficult book and may be triggering for some. I felt a number of strong and unpleasant emotions (anger, fear, sadness) while listening to this, but I couldn't put it down. Horrific as it is, I'm really glad that Tara Westover had the courage to publish this. The book kind of has an open ending, you know that the family dysfunction and drama is still continuing, and you wonder how much distance Tara Westover will be able to keep from her family over time, if she will continue to return, yearning for the acceptance of her parents.

The narrator was a perfect match.

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Well-written but emotionally manipulative

I struggled to rate this book. A fascinating read; compelling, horrifying, strangely relatable, and well written. When I finished I was emotionally charged and had a lot of thoughts about it but I also had a strange feeling that I couldn’t quite define. Over time as I’ve replayed the book in my mind and tried to sort out this unease I’ve recognized the feeling of possible manipulation? The inevitable holes of memory are understandable in a memoir which seems to be a common criticism of the book but my issue lies more in the overall voice of the story being a little too excused, empty of fault or culpability about anything. The last thing I want to do is victim shame but in every scenario she is ALWAYS the victim, she’s always the wide-eyed innocent and real life just doesn’t always play out that way, especially when someone has been abused. I don’t know her or her family or even Idaho but intuitively I get the feeling that this highly intelligent, well-educated woman is writing a very real story but in a very specific way. I don’t doubt many of the facts of the story but they do seem to be presented in a way to lead readers to conclusions that feel like their own but have actually been masterfully engineered in how they were presented. She has put her family in an unflattering spotlight that only she controls. Is this a revenge book? I’m not sure but I do feel sure that there is more depth and color to this dreamy-eyed, emotionally frail girl than is described in the book.

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Gripping Read


There is no doubting that Tara Westover's survival and achievement is nothing short of an amazing feat and she is to be applauded for her strength and determination. You don't have to read between the lines to know very early in this book that this young girl (the author) is being neglected and abused on many levels, in the home of seemingly well-intentioned, loving parents. It creeps in and feels as blatantly incongruent and ugly as a blot on a peaceful bucolic scene. All the more insidious as a wide range of mental disorders throughout the family become obvious and are dismissed and justified -- denial.

I've had to sit back and reflect on this book and the author, as well as allow myself to read the reviews of other readers in order to be objective with Educated. True, it is a story of a miraculous survival and achievement by the author. It is also a sad account, to add to hundreds of accounts we've had to hear, about the destructive effects of abuse and mental illness. I've mentioned before in my reviews I worked with patients that sadly have had very similar stories and they are all heartbreaking so it is nice to read that Ms. Westover is on top of her ordeal. Healing and recovery is a challenging process and I felt Westover, at times, compartmentalized her experiences, speaking from the authority of her academic status.

Her voice in this narrative seems to waiver a bit between assuredness and doubt, which is natural for a recovering person. I could not help wondering -- which is why I waited to read other's reviews to see if I was being too clinical -- if this story was premature in that it felt like the road still reaches out far in front of her journey. It is my hope that in telling her story, feeling the support of readers that themselves gain strength from her fight and acknowledge her accomplishment, Ms. Westover can continue her fight with courage and grace.

*In spite of its capacity to foster compassion, humanness, and understanding, throughout the ages religion has at times been a source of abuse, persecution, terrorism, and genocide. These problems continue today across the world, as illustrated by religiously-based terrorism, clergy sexual abuse, and religiously-supported genocide.* Ms. Westover makes the distinction that her family is Fundamentalist Mormons, which are sects that have separated themselves from the LDS Church. This is a very interesting time in the world culture, and I suspect that by giving voice to abuse on so many different levels, Ms. Westover has added her voice to a brave force that is demanding long needed positive change in all areas where there has been abuse.

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Mostly depressing and irritating

I couldn't figure out what the book is supposed to be about: Intolerance, the rigidity of some fundamentalist Mormonism, ignorance, an innate desire to learn, overcoming obstacles, mental illness, trying to justify passivity in the face of evil?

What struck me most about the story, and what I found most outrageous, was the passivity of the author. Yes, I know she was suffering from the accumulated weight of familial dysfunction, brainwashing and oppression, and resulting mental illness and personality disorders, but her story is so uneven it often doesn't make much sense. She was meek and held back by her family, which refused to let her go to school, yet she went on to go to college at the age of 16 because she managed to teach herself enough to be admitted and then her family seemed fine with this. The thread of the Mormon religion ran through this yet was never explained or examined or even brought in, in any meaningful way.

She knew her brother was a sadist and a bully and exhibited the same personality traits as her father, whom she had informally diagnosed as bipolar, yet even with evidence that he abused his timid fiancee she passively kept quiet, knowing he would abuse her and their children. She constantly made excuses for the depravity of her family, right up until the end of the book, without ever finding a moral compass for herself or them. Her brother abused her, often violently, he tortured and killed a family dog, he repeatedly threatened to kill her, and she remained passive and refused to admit he was mentally ill, instead constantly returning to him even when she knew the pattern would be repeated. If this had been related to the pattern of abused women in other relationships it might have had some value. As it was, she simply came across as clueless and stubborn and inexplicably passive.

Even when she was an accomplished scholar, getting advanced degrees, traveling around the world, being exposed to ideas and undergoing counseling, she was bullheaded in her determined passivity, and I found myself rather disliking her, as she watched chaos and pain and misery developing around her and refused to take any action, clinging instead to a delusional dependence on a family that was toxic to its core. No amount of time in the outside world, no level of education, no experience with counseling, made her see the insanity of her home life for what it was, as she rushed home to participate in an absolutely bizarre treatment of her injured father, which she never seemed to find odd.

She related example after example of behaviors that were alarming, violent, vicious, dangerous and cruel, with a curious dispassionate distance, as if relating oddities discovered in a book about an old civilization. Her father put his children at risk of severe injury and even death? Hmmm. Her brother probably sent her allegedly beloved horse off to a slaughterhouse? Oh, well. Her mother enabled cruel and abusive behaviors by her husband and son? So what?

I didn't find the book inspirational, just very depressing, and about a person I found to be increasingly unlikable in her selfishness and willingness to stand by and watch others suffer. I stuck with it, hoping for a resolution that would make me happy she had gained some inner strength and self-knowledge, but it never really happened. The only resolution, such as it was, just kind of happened around her, because she remained mute and indecisive.

As someone from a dysfunctional family, with family members whose pathology resulted, finally, in separating from them, and as someone with friends from families with other but very severe pathologies, I had a hard time justifying the author's choices and noticed that she never took responsibility for them, she just drifted through them.

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Depressing

The book exhausted me with the terribly depressing story line of non stop abuse. The accidents on the job, the two car accidents, the blood, the total crazy family life was all too much. Please keep your sanity and pick another book.

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A Difficult Book

Difficult because of my mixed feelings throughout this unusual memoir. As told in all the reviews, this is a story of a superbly dysfunctional family. But as a listener to the horrible abuse and hearing Tara just carry on and even forgive and embrace all the perpetrators, made it difficult for me to remain compassionate to her plight.
Maybe that's not so saintly, but the characters of her father, brother and mother were so disturbing that I couldn't reach that level of understanding.
So I can't say I enjoyed the book, but it certainly was a look into a world I have never known.

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Memoir about a woman w/ crazy parents who gets...

...educated!

I was halfway through this when I heard Westover on NPR and was rather surprised at how she...justified...her father's behavior. She doesn't really do that in the book that much. Yes, she speculates that he's bi-polar, but in the book when she describes the many times he puts his kids in situations that can get them killed (yes, really), and they all end up injured--some quite badly--she just lays it out there without much reflection, internal thoughts, etc. As a result, the reader comes to his/her own conclusion. And I'm guessing that many people's conclusion is that the man is bat shi* crazy.

I had this on my wish list for so long that I didn't re-read the synopsis so I wasn't quite expecting a memoir that essentially boils down to: Woman raised as a survivalist and fundamentalist Mormon, works like a dog from the time she's a little kid, doesn't go to school and gets no education at all, has 2 crazy parents who believe all medicine and doctors are evil among other beliefs that seem utterly insane, who has an abusive brother, yet somehow finds it within herself to get herself into to college (BYU) at age 16.

I guess one can read this as an amazing success story (and it is) but it's a litany of struggle (no surprise there). Once she goes to college, good things do happen to her, but her self-esteem is so low, that she can't even be the tiniest bit happy.

The strangest thing was all the people who bent over backwards to help her. She mostly refused their help and I found myself getting annoyed. Yes, yes, she explains why she refuses, but still. I don't know anyone who has ever been offered THAT much help--or anyone that unwilling to take it.

Fifteen years ago, I probably would have rated this 4 or 5 stars. So my 3-star rating is more of a reflection of not wanting to read such bleak stuff. Yes, things sort of turn out in the end (she definitely gets very educated), but how does one really overcome a childhood like that? The parents don't change, the abusive brother doesn't change. The three who do change are the three who got out, and one of those three is her.

Really, the most amazing thing is that she goes from a level of ignorance I can't even fathom (she didn't know about the civil rights movement or the holocaust, doesn't know the most basic things--like washing your hands after using the bathroom) to someone exceedingly educated in a ten-year span.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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