Some autobiographical memoirs of traumatic childhoods are self-pitying and self- absorbed. This one is not. The author gives a balanced picture of her troubled family, in which madness is combined with ingenuity, intelligence and grit, and of the wider Mormon community in which she grew up. It provides a fascinating insight into the complex effects of mental illness on family relationships and the individual. It is also a moving story of one individual's successful struggle to overcome those effects and live a satisfying life.

What wild ride.

Tara Westover grew up in a fundamentalist, survivalist family in rural Idaho. Her family was isolated socially, refusing modern medicine and schooling. Instead, Tara and her siblings were “homeschooled” and helped with the family business. The focus of the novel is on Tara’s upbringing and how it has shaped her.

This novel was a roller coaster ride. Tara speaks frankly of the abuse, both emotional and physical, that dominated her formative years. My jaw was wide open during many scenes, unable to believe that someone had experienced such horrific events growing up. The amount of pain and suffering this family went through unnecessarily was immense.

While horrible, she so accurately documented what it looks like and feels to experience gas lighting and emotional abuse. I was blown how by how she even managed to share the small moments of her father’s care. I found it interesting that Tara was able to present these stories with little judgement or resentment towards her family. Her novel does not condemn or condone her family’s fundamentalist or survivalist life styles, which I feel was a gracious response.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book.

The key message of the book on importance of education is the most essential part of the book and for that reason alone I would say this must be read by everyone. It shows the readers what we all take for granted can be the most desired thing for a lot of people so lets value everything we have and enjoy/use them.

Part one was slightly repetitive and the second part gets really good and held my attention completely. Tara's strength and grit is totally amazing.

I finished this with goosebumps all over me and give it 5 courageous stars. I loved this one a lot and I will never be the same. This was life changing for me because the healing continues.

What do you do when your parents are crazy and you don’t even know it? How do you learn to live any normal life when you finally give yourself permission to leave the madness?
It mad me crazy how this family shamed and damaged other family members almost to the point of destroying them!

In a lot of ways my life was similar and this was at times very difficult to listen to but I am so proud of the fact that she was brave enough to tell her story.

Toward the end of this retelling I was scared out of my mind and then angry for the injustice of the things done in this family! Finally she was able to see her future and confide in what happened in her past and then was only met with excuses and denial!

WHY, why, why can’t this have resolution! I’ve experienced my own pain and not have family want to swallow down the horrible things done. This book was life altering for me. Great writing very honestly told. Loved it!

I finish with this review in the knowledge that I am a daughter of the King and he daily heals me and allows me to grow and it is enough. Jesus is enough. Even when your family doesn’t see things for what they are.

This is my second read of this book and it was a NETGALLEY gift and all opinions are my own. Thank you for reading my honest review.

This year our local book club has read more than the typical number of memoirs. This might have brought some perspective to my review, as well.

I felt a lot of pain and sorrow from Westover’s words, as she shared her story, but at the same time, I felt there were many instances where her story fell flat. I really hate to say that about someone’s life, especially when they are sharing so much personal trauma.

I do think this topic as a genre should continue to be investigated and valued by readers- her narrative of life with her dad and mother, plus siblings is incredibly eye-opening for readers unfamiliar with the true practices of “living off the grid.” This is why I am adding it to my favorites from 2019, because even though it’s not my favorite genre and memoirs raise questions, and I struggled with parts of the story line; in the end, it’s the best memoir to read that will bring you out of your comfort zone and leave you questioning the world.

I absolutely love Educated by Tara Westover. This is my first memoir and it was amazing. I cried, smiled, felt anger towards people who weren’t treating her right and cheered for the author as well. This book is about a girl who has never had any educational background or access to healthcare and so many important things we take for granted. It blew my mind on how a person can live like this. It made me realize that I’m privileged and should take the things I have as a blessing. I am so inspired and proud of Tara. I cannot stress enough how much I love this book. It gave me a new perspective of the world. I don’t want to spoil the book but based on the title, it’s about this author’s journey of having a formal education and stepping away from her family. It’s also surrounds the topics of family and loyalty. She was raised in this family who have different views from other people and they were survivalists. Throughout the books she had to choose between staying with her family or moving away from it and living a new life. Overall, I love this book so much and I recommend everyone to read it. To me, this book is 6 stars out of 5.

Educated quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. One of my high school English teachers recommended I read it, and I wound up reading it in two sittings. The perspective she has and how she reflects is phenomenal. I love to recommend this book to anyone and everyone I can because I think it is that book that everyone should read in their life.

This is an absolute MUST READ book! I think anyone can empathize with this book, but being an educator, I think it pulled on my heartstrings even more!

Educated is a memoir that details the true life events of Tara Westover and her nomadic family. Tara's family has many children, none of which who have been to the doctor. Few of them have attended public school, and if they have, they were only in formal schooling for a short amount of time. Her family is even to the extreme that most of the children don't have birth certificates.

Tara is eventually able to escape the nontraditional aspects of her family by attending BYU to pursue a degree. She quickly discovers that there are so many basic things of the world that she doesn't understand.

This book will make you have much more of an appreciation for the life that you have and put into perspective some of the things that many people take for granted. A truly emotional read that changed the way I view some of my students.

I think I had too high of hopes for this book, because I didn't find it as impactful as my fellow readers have. Westover's life has certainly been challenging, but this memoir didn't quite resonate with me.

I thought this book was just okay. I had heard a lot about it and expected more.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes memoirs.

This was a fantastic and riveting read. It’s an almost unbelievable story, but the fact that it’s a memoir just makes it that much more powerful. The author tells the story of her life with a wisdom beyond her years. Her story of escaping her strangely religious family by getting an education is inspiring and is told beautifully.

Tara Westover grew up in Idaho in a fundamentalist religious family. She was one of seven children, the second from the last. They lived in a rural area and as much off the grid as her father could make them. They didn't register the children at birth, her father made his living in a marginal cash business and the family had no use for doctors and modern medicine. The mother was a midwife and an herbalist and she had her babies at home and when someone was hurt or ill, she used her herbal knowledge to care for them.

The children were schooled at home. Or what passed for education as little formal effort was made. Tara tells of one incident where she flipped through 50 pages in her math book and told her mother she had done 50 pages. Rather than quizzing her to see if she had understanding, her mother just praised her telling her that's why they home schooled because Tara could never work at her fast pace in the public schools. Her father ruled the household and was a survivalist; he took stories such as Ruby Ridge and the Weaver family to heart as it fed into his paranoid tendencies.

Tara not only wasn't supported in getting an education but there were other consequences. She was raised doing dangerous work, stripping parts in a junkyard or driving large pieces of equipment as her father and brothers worked on building things. When one of her brothers started acting out his anger on Tara, she tried to hide it. She got no protection or acknowledgement of what was happening from her family.

But something in Tara wanted more. When one of her elder brothers rebelled and went off to college, it stirred that impulse in Tara. She studied and studied until she could pass the ACT test and even made a high enough score to obtain a scholarship. She moved off to college and found a society there that was different from her home and its beliefs in every manner possible. As she studied and discovered the truths about the world that she had no idea of, she determined that she would live in the educated world. She went on to get a degree, a master's and even a doctorate from Cambridge in England.

This is a memoir and as such, is written by Westover from her memories. Her family disputes her version of events and she is estranged from most of them at this point. Her feeling that they did not support her or help her can not be reconciled in their view of this period. Westover documents her events with diary entries and letters from her siblings as best she can, but there is always a difference in how different family members remember events. Regardless of the truth, it is a remarkable achievement to have three children from such a background go on to get doctorates as the Westover family did. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.

I loved this book. It is a great example of truth being stranger than fiction. The author writes about her childhood in a "prepper" home. She didn't go to school, she didn't get any dental or healthcare, and didn't even have a birth certificate for years and years after her birth. The story of how she gets past this childhood to a successful adulthood is definitely worth the read.

Educated
An amazing, incredible story. This was a book I was going to quickly read through because I kept hearing about it. But was it really something I wanted to read? I could not put this book down. It is still frustrating to me that Tara Westover was so tied into her family that she could not pull away even when it was detrimental to her well being.

Looking in form the outside and reading what Tara writes, it is easy to say leave, don't go back, what are you thinking?!?! But, I guess being on the inside, growing up with a crazy, abusive family, without the benefit of seeing other examples of a better family life, you think this is how you have to live. Even though later on Westover does see how she is being mistreated, it takes her so long to really make a final separation with her family.

What an incredible family story she tells, of living secluded from other families and even most of her won extended relatives. Her father always preparing for the end of the world. Working dangerous jobs and putting his own children in harms way with the tasks he expected them to do. Their mother not challenging the father and learning natural medicinal remedies to heal her children and her husband when they were extremely injured. Using her healing skills to earn some money to help the family. But they were all living in incredible poverty and deplorable conditions.

This is a story of how inherent intelligence can help you escape your surroundings. With very little education Tara and a few of her brothers were able to study to pass a high school equivalency test and get accepted to good colleges. they were able to get assistance from teachers who wanted to help them and they were able to escape their turbulent childhoods. It is a frustrating, but at the same time, heartwarming story of success.

I tried reading this earlier in the year and decided to wait for the audio version on Overdrive, which had a long wait. Had I not listened to it, I would never have finished the book, which would not have been bad. I'm sure I could have listened to something much better to end the year, 2019. Since this year was not a good one for me, I guess this was a decent representation of 2019. I did not like this book at all and find it hard to believe that a girl, who never went to school, not even homeschool really, was able to score an ACT of 28, after taking it one time, get into the competitive Brigham Young University, and go onto Cambridge and a fellowship at Harvard, and earning herself a PHD. At several points, I wanted to DNF this and I really wish I did. There were several other incidents in the book that caused me to doubt its truthfulness. I do not understand the hype on this book and all the 5 stars.

I finished Educated feeling wrung out, yet I still must recommend this incredible memoir. Educated is beautifully written, heartrendingly insightful, and uplifting.

So if you think your New Year’s resolutions are insurmountable – read Educated – getting back to the gym will seem like a cake walk.

An amazing story of mental illness, abuse, and ultimately strength and resilience

Some adjectives to describe Westover’s outstanding writing: mesmerizing, poetic, well-organized, descriptive (eating cereal with water was like eating a bowl of mud), heartfelt, scary, sensory, reflective, emotional.

Westover relates more than a fascinating story, where her life and that of her family was in continual danger. Simple, but powerful language whispers warnings, “When I was young these tussles usually ended with Mother screaming over a broken lamp or vase, but as I got older there were fewer things left to break.” Her insights into the whys of behavior drive the story forward. Neglect and abuse were rationalized and understated.

Educated evoked my emotions, involved me. I got mad at dad, mom, Shawn. I rooted for Tyler and Tara. I ached at her dance class experience and soared when she sang.

Once Tara starts college at BYU, her lack of education creates new problems. She was unfamiliar with the holocaust and the Civil Riots movement. She had never taken an essay test. “I was the only dancer on the stage who seemed to have missed rehearsal.” A teacher who observed her good, but stilted writing didn’t know that she had learned to read and write by reading only the Bible, the book of Mormon, and speeches by Mormon leaders. She believed her good grades were a miracle and studied “until 2 or 3 A.M. each night, believing it was the price she had to pay to earn God’s support.”

Tara kept a journal. “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.” I am grateful that Tara found her voice with help from kind mentors. I am grated for my education and that Westover could share the story of her unusual education with the world.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Easily one of my favorite books I have read this year! Educated is a well written memoir detailing the childhood and early adulthood of Tara Westover, who was raised by Mormon parents prepping for the end of days. Never having set foot in a public school, Tara studies to take the ACT so she can get into college and recieve an official education.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a hard pill to swallow. However, like most ugly things in life, I believe It is important that this story be shared. One word to describe the book? Courageous.

** spoiler alert ** A very tragic story, but I don't know. Something is just off. She just seemed to acquire the school knowledge, especially math, so quickly once she decided she needed to learn it. Also, where did all the money she needed come from once she got to school? Not the grants or scholarships. The living expenses. Money to new clothes etc.

I know a lot of this must have happened. I just feel like things don't add up.