2019 Book Review #18: Educated

I rarely read non-fiction unless it's a study book of some kind or a book about my beloved Adirondack mountains/hiking trails.  When I saw this come out last year, I was hooked and waited on a town library list for 5 months before it was fianlly available!  I read it in a week.....it's excellent and a must read if you are a parent, teacher or professor, social worker, or serving in any kind of ministry. 

It's a powerful memoir.

SUMMARY

Tara Westover was raised with 6 other siblings and her parents on a mountain known as Bucks Peak in Idaho.  Father and Mother were survivalists and members of the Mormon church. Tara's father was a fanatic (not a word used in her memoir....it's my word) about certain concepts such as believing the end of the world was near and not trusting the medical establishment, the public school systems (or education in general) and the federal government.

The family stock-piled home-canned goods (peaches) and rifles.  Mother was known as a "healer" using herbs and essential oils instead of taking her children to the doctor.  Tara had to help her mother in the kitchen, along with her sister Audrey, and during the winter she had to help her father scrap metal in the junkyard that he owned.

Tara's brothers Tyler, Richard, and Tony all escaped from this horrible life.  They are also the siblings that remained in touch with Tara as she went on to educate herself.  The rest of her family (father, mother, Audrey, Shawn, Luke) have shunned her.  (my words).

Tara grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive environment not to mention the medical and educational neglect.

She and her siblings..as well as her father and mother...all suffered from burns, cuts, gashes, but yet never saw a doctor due to her father's extremism and fanaticism.  This is medical neglect yet because they weren't in a school setting, no social worker ever came to check up on the children.  They were very isolated from mainstream society.  Shawn, older than Audrey and Tara, was extremely physically abusive and manipulative.  She doesn't write about sexual abuse but the physical abuse she endured is criminal.  Sadly, nothing was done by her parents.

One of her brothers managed to get away and get himself enrolled in Brigham Young University (a Mormon-based college in Utah).  He came home and told Tara all about this world off the mountain.  That's when she decided she would try a new life.  

Tara taught herself math, grammar and science in order to take the ACT and apply to college.  She was finally admitted to Brigham Young where she studied psychology, politics, philosophy and history.  For the very first time, at age 17, she was learning about the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War, the Holocaust!

Gaining knowledge began to transform her.  She won a fellowship to study at Cambridge and later at Harvard where she earned her PhD.

Yet all of this education wasn't enough for her to really be a part of her family, other than three of her brothers.

MY THOUGHTS

This book will move you. It's truly one of the best memoirs I've ever read.  She endured so much at the hands of her father and brother...and to not have a mother on your side is just horrible.

This book is profound, raw, compelling.  It drives you to find out how Tara is going to "find herself".  It's beautiful and so honest.  

I truly don't understand how this can happen in today's society!  What is wrong with people??  Her father was a religious weirdo yet she does mention in the beginning of the book that this story isn't about being Mormon.  And she says it isn't about any other form of religious belief.

Her father had some real deep psychological issues and when she began studying psychology, she learned about bipolar disorder and schizophrenia which accurately describes her father.  Her mother was extremely submissive to "keep the peace" in the house.

Tara does have an aunt (her mother's sister) who rallied around her as Tara became older.

There were a couple of quotes that jumped out at me and that I really liked:

"our parents are held down by chains of abuse, manipulation, and control...they see change as dangerous and will exile anyone who asks for it.  This is a perverted idea of family loyalty...they claim faith, but this is not what the gospel teaches." (written by her brother Tyler to her in an email.  pg 316, Educated by Tara Westover c.2018)

"You could call this selfhood many things.  Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity.  Betrayal. I call it an education." (at the end of the book, writing about her self and the changes she made.  pg 329, Educated by Tara Westover, c.2018) 

Tara was born in 1986. She nows holds a BA from Brigham Young University (2008), and she earned a Masters of Philosophy from Trinity College (Cambridge) in 2009.  In 2010 she was invited to be a fellow at Harvard University.  Later, in 2014, she earned a PhD in History when she returned to Cambridge.

If you can only read one book this summer, make it this one!  

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to mature content)

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.