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

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.

"Educated" versus Berg's "The Art of Mending"

Coincidentally, I read Berg's 2006 "The Art of Mending" just after finishing the Westover's 2018 memoir "Educated". There is no doubt that Westover is riveting and that Berg is contemplative, that one is memoir and the other is fiction.. There is no doubt that the abuse Westover suffered was profound, and the abuse suffered by Caroline in the fictional "Art of Mending" is, in comparison, merely severe.

But it is the investigation of sibling abuse in both that caught my eye.

Parental abuse is intensified by sibling abuse and sibling denial in both books. Berg's ruined victim of child abuse, Caroline, is about 50, and thus a different generation than Westover.. Caroline first reveals the long hidden and long denied abuse to a therapist, and then begins the arduous and almost self-destroying process of confronting her siblings, rebuilding relationships with , and using the new bond with siblings to confront her mother. What is surprising to both characters in the book and the reader is that Caroline begins a process, not of revenge, but of building a whole new relationship with her mother

Westover, perhaps because of her age, and definitely because her parents deny absolutely any wrongdoing, cannot begin to achieve a new relationship.

Both Westover and Caroline want their siblings to confirm what really happened and they want the past opened up. Sibling memory is crucial in both books, and makes both books somewhat unusual in the literature of abuse. But the situation in Westover is so profoundly abusive that no resolution is actually possible.

Which is more likely? Berg's guilty mother and siblings eventually admit their wrong doing. Westover's parents and siblings deny theirs in fiery denunciations and death-threats. Truthfully, the Westover situation is more believable to me, although the Berg ending is more attractive. Reading Berg, however, was helpful to me.

Westover's book suffers from a lack of distance. The faults in Westover's account lie partially in her continual return to the mountain home and its abuse and partially in what looks like exaggeration. I am troubled by the broken bones that seem to heal miraculously and by what looks like Westover's addiction to masochism. Westover seems as yet unable to fully examine her own complicity in the family drama, although her isolation and the fact that she had no childhood friends except siblings plays into her inability to escape.

The fault in Berg lies in the wishful thinking that a successful "intervention" or rehabilitation is even possible.

Reading Berg made me more able to accept Westover's dilemma as the real thing: that escape is never complete, that death-threats are probably quite common, and that wishful thinking is the most common adult response to childhood abuse and familial mental illness.

Wow

Wow. I listened to this after hearing the author interviewed on Fresh Air. Tara's story is incredible. The narration is so evocative that I felt so infuriated on behalf of Tara. Definitely painful to listen to at times, but the authors resilience is truly amazing.

Engrossing at first, but then...

EDUCATED: A MEMOIR had me fully hooked from beginning to end. And then I started to wonder....

Why would this seemingly brilliant person keep going back to an abusive situation; the advanced education just didn't add up; and how did the abusive brother get away with his actions for so long. The author at least did give more than one version of a situation via both her recollection and her sibling(s). Memory is a tricky thing.

The narrator was ok, but her male voices were awful and difficult to differentiate, though I don't think this had much to do with my questions regarding the events in this memoir.

There is an excellent review of this book in Goodreads along with some similar questions given by Marialyce 3/2/2018.

Great Narration, Dark and Moving

This was recommended and then, when I looked it up, I saw all the big name plugs for the book.

The narration is excellent and really brings out the characters. I have since gone onto YouTube to look up interviews with the author.

There is something powerful about people who survive a childhood of abuse. As a survivor myself, I look for the authenticity of people who broke out of the environment that creates PTSD and can leave some irreparably damaged.

Tara presents a mostly data-driven look at her life as a child to adult and yet, when the individual stories are examined, it presents a truly emotional story of finding oneself in this crazy world.

I can see why it hit the best seller list and really enjoyed the listen, particularly due to the outstanding narration by Whelan.

Although the topic material leans dark at times, this is a great escape book...one that shows the world through different eyes, those of a fundamentalist religious person who basically created their own reality and tried to mold that reality onto his children and family.

This book blew my mind!!

Exquisite is the only word that will do this book justice. I was so drawn into Tara Westover's life that I could think of little else when I wasn't listening to it. I was raised in, and am still an active member of, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or, as we are referred to in the book, the Mormons. When Tara lived at Buck's Peak, I was working teaching school only 5 miles away, and living roughly 10 miles away. Her experience growing up in a Mormon family was completely foreign to me and was nothing like what I experienced growing up in a Mormon family, which is why I was so fascinated by this book. Tara is a master of the English language and tells her story in a way that held me captive until the very end. It was breathtaking and I was inspired by her courage. Very well done Tara Westover!!

Like watching a train wreck

I couldn’t stop consuming this book. When I did, it was because I couldn’t take any more of this family’s sick chaos and needed a break. It’s quite interesting to know that this is how people can live, closed off from the rest of the world in their own reality. The fact that part of the family ended up with PHD educations and the rest just a high school education, says so much about how the only escape from the insanity was knowledge and reality. Wow.

This story was ASTOUNDING.

This story was ASTOUNDING. There were several times I had to go back and listen to parts again to fully comprehend the events or conversations that occurred. Westover tells her story in a very clear voice. My head and heart are reeling from learning what she overcame and the years of growth and personal reflection she had to commit to in order to process the psychological abuse that she faced. I am inspired by her determination and accomplishments.

Heartbreaking and redemptive

The author has been through hell and back; her story is one of bravery and tenacity. The emotion that this story evokes is intense. During numerous listens, I found myself wanting to reach through the speakers to strangle the author's family members. This story is heartbreaking and evokes so much compassion for complex family dynamics, physical and emotional abuse, mental illness, and religious handicaps.

Amazing

One of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ll be processing this and rereading this for years.