I really enjoyed this book and found it to be very interesting from beginning to end! I loved the setting of the mountains and The Princess. Tara is caertainly to be admired for going to college and trying to make peace with her mentally disturbed family! It is sad that she never had a close relationship with her family due to their mental illnesses. You can see how the cycle repeats itself from her parents to her siblings. I would recommend this book to my friends.

This almost unbelievable real-life story by Tara shares how she grew up in a survivalist home in Idaho with 6 brothers and sisters. Despite abuse and educational neglect, she somehow broke free and went to college, then graduate school, then received her doctorate.

Her story is very inspiring. It shows how people really can overcome many obstacles. When all the odds were stacked against her, she still somehow kept hope alive.

3 Sad to Say Stars 🌟🌟🌟

Ugh this is hard for me... I really am such a positive reviewer for the most part, but this book I unfortunately found disappointing.... this could be for multiple reasons, I went in with high expectations... I had read so many glowing reviews for this book I was expecting greatness.... also this is absolutely not in my preferred list of genres, but this also could’ve helped the book.... as I have very few books to compare it to.... I finished this book well over a week ago and I have sat on this review, because I just am not sure how to be honest without criticizing a persons life.... for this reason I may never read another memoir that I need to review, it is hard for me to separate the person from the book.... but I will try...

On a very positive note I thought the message of this book was wonderful education is extremely important.... it really is one thing nobody can ever take away from you.... I do admire Tara’s fortitude to acquire an education..... however there was a little luck involved here.... all I’m saying is the average person of average intelligence probably isn’t going to end up at Harvard.... no matter how hard they work.... clearly Tara was blessed with the intelligence to do so, and this was not addressed anywhere in this book... my father grew up with a single mother, his father passed away when he was one-year-old, they didn’t have much, but his mother forced him to go to at least one year of college and he ended up with a PhD in aeronautical engineering.... now I am very proud of my father he has accomplished a lot in his life and he is an amazing person, however he was also blessed with an amazing brain... apparently this skips a generation because my son was blessed with that same amazing brain.... all I’m saying is sometimes you need to give credit where credit is due.... if I had started college without knowing any algebra my freshman year I would have never made it through college much less ended up at Harvard, no matter how hard I worked..... so yes you should work hard, yes education is important, but you also need to be realistic with what your abilities are.... some of the hardest working people might end up at the local community college or not in college at all..... sorry that was a bit of a rant, rant over....
There are also some things in this book I found a little hard to believe.... however I will give Tara the benefit of the doubt on this, sometimes our perception of things isn’t exactly how things happened.... wow a lot of things could have been avoided if they just wore seatbelts....

But really in all honesty none of the things stated above cause me to not love this book, it just did not hold my attention.... I needed some light moments in the midst of all these horrible childhood memories.... even in the worst of childhoods there are some bright spots....

For me this book had a very positive message, however I would’ve preferred it to be delivered in a more positive and realistic manner.... and to all of you who love this book I am so glad you did! really I wish I had as well....
*** thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for a copy of this book ***

What an interesting memoir about a life outside of mainstream society. Tara Westover was born in 1986, but at times, reading her memoir felt as if it was set decades earlier.
Raised by a radical Mormon father and subservient mother, Tara and her siblings were not sent to school or doctors.

As Tara grows up, she begins to become more enlightened to the circumstances of her family life. Not getting a birth certificate until age nine and having no formal education until age seventeen, definitely set Tara apart from her peers.

What is outstanding is that up until she entered college, Tara was more or less self taught. It is impressive that three children out of the family went on to earn a Phd.

Education aside, there were many other disturbing aspects about the family. Abuse, suffered at the hands of an older brother, was overlooked. Safety precautions in the family business were nonexistent, resulting in some devastating injuries that the family chose to treat at home, rather than go to a hospital.

Not surprising that today Tara has no contact with at least half of her family. Any of the siblings that are dependent on income from the family business are estranged from Tara. I think it was easy to freeze Tara out of the family both because she was female and because she was self-sufficient.

As I finished the book, I wondered why Tara would ever care to reconnect with her parents and certain siblings at all. There was so much toxic behavior within the family, I would think it would be insane to be in the same room with them ever again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Random House for providing me with a copy to read and give an honest review.

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho, not terribly far from where I grew up. Her writing beautifully evokes the natural landscape of Idaho and the feelings of isolation that can come with growing up in such a sparsely populated state. Though I did not grow up in the LDS church, the town I came from is very much culturally LDS - and Westover's family - primarily her father - takes the beliefs of mainstream Mormonism to an extreme.

Westover's journey from rural Idaho to BYU to a couple of Ivy League schools, struggling to reconcile her 'worldly' education with the teachings of her youth, is beautifully revealed in this book. Anyone who has struggled to leave a deeply ingrained value system will see themselves reflected here - and even if you've never struggled with such a thing, Westover's journey is so compelling it's impossible to put down.

SALT LAKE CITY — Tara Westover's memoir "Educated" hit bookstores Feb. 20 and is already a New York Times best-seller. It tells the story of her childhood in rural Idaho, raised by Mormon parents with extremist views, and the difficult steps she took to learn about life outside her narrow world.

Growing up, Westover didn't attend school and had minimal homeschooling. No one in her family went to the doctor or used contemporary medicine, relying instead on homebrewed herbs and oils. Her father, who Westover wrote was fearful that the government was out to get them, obsessively planned for the apocalypse by hoarding guns, food and gold. The author, the youngest of seven children, didn't get a birth certificate until she was 9 years old.

But limited education didn't stop Westover from wanting to learn. She attended Brigham Young University, thanks to a good ACT score and her older brother (a BYU graduate) who helped her apply. It was while studying there that her world began to expand. As her professors and religious leaders took her under their wings, Westover was able to stay in school despite what she wrote was a lack of encouragement or financial support from home. She eventually did what once might have seemed impossible: She earned a Ph.D from Cambridge University.

Westover wrote that she suffered physical abuse from one of her brothers during her teenage years. When, a few years later, she spoke out about this abuse, it caused a rift in her family that has persisted.

In "Educated," Westover examines what she gained from her unique upbringing and what she continues to learn from the outside world, revealing who she is becoming and what she has come to value most in life. Today, Westover is no longer active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is estranged from most of her immediate family, but she writes of the peace she has found within herself.

Westover spoke with the Deseret News about writing "Educated" and what is at the heart of her memoir.

Note: This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Deseret News: What gave you the idea to write a book about your life?

Tara Westover: When I was going through the experience of losing my own family, I became really sensitive to the stories that I was encountering in film or books or even advertising. I felt like we had stories about family loyalty; I didn't feel like we had stories about what to do when you felt that loyalty to your family was in conflict with loyalty to yourself. I felt like we had stories about forgiveness, and most of those stories associate reconciliation with forgiveness. They made it seem like reconciliation was the highest form of forgiveness and I just didn't know whether I would ever be able to reconcile with my family, so I wanted to tell a story that would be about forgiveness but wouldn't necessarily be about reconciliation.

DN: Was is emotionally challenging to write this book?

TW: It was challenging, but the bits I thought would be challenging were easier than I thought they would be. Then there were things I thought would be really easy that were actually the hardest things to write about: the more positive things like the way the mountain looked in the spring or memories I had canning with my mother. The things about my childhood that I really loved the most, writing about those things was hard because I knew they would never happen again. The more difficult things I was able to write about because I knew I wasn't there and I didn't have to go back. It was over.

DN: Have you had victims of abuse open up to your about their experiences since the book has come out? How does that make you feel?

TW: I've definitely had some people emailing me about that kind of thing. I definitely didn't want to write a book that says to anybody, "This is how you deal with difficult or even toxic relationships." But I hoped if they could empathize with me and how I made my decisions, maybe they could empathize with themselves and the decisions they had to make. It's hard to make that kind of decision to walk away from your family because I think sometimes we feel like we don't have the right to make that decision. Maybe it's because we're brought up to be so unselfish and to avoid even the appearance of selfishness. I think because we're so busy trying not to be selfish, we never really learn how to practice anything like self-love.

DN: I noticed you were really careful to say in the beginning that this book isn't meant to reflect on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. How do you feel about the church today?

TW: One of the reasons I put that note there is I don't feel like my dad is representative of the church. I knew at the time that it was going to get published in a lot of countries where people don't know anything about Mormonism. I think most Americans probably would know (my dad) isn't a typical Mormon, but I'm not sure most British or French people would, so I wanted to make sure that people didn't read it and mistakenly think this is what all Mormons are like. It has been helpful because in a lot of cases when I'm being interviewed, people will ask me about it because it's the first thing they saw (in the book) and then I get a chance to explain. I didn't want any of the more negative aspects of my family relationships to be pinned on the church. That was important to me.

DN: What impact did your upbringing have on how you feel about the church now?

TW: I'm not sure that is has so much, because I don't think of my parents as mainstream LDS. BYU was a really positive place for me. I can't imagine that I could've gone somewhere that would've been a better environment for what I needed. It has a great tradition of pastoral care and community. I had a bishop (who I talked about) in the book who made a huge difference in my life. He really noticed that something wasn't right and put a lot of time into talking to me. I think he was probably the first almost father figure that I felt like I had in my life. The relationship I had with that bishop was the first time I knew what you're supposed to feel like with a parent. So BYU had this amazing effect on me. I've always been really grateful to the church. I'm not a practicing Mormon now, but I have pretty positive feelings overall.

DN: Do you feel like there's a part of yourself that's still effected by how you were raised?

TW: Absolutely. I found myself humming "Book of Mormon Stories" the other day and it was a pleasant memory of singing that in Primary. There's always going to be bits of that. Often when I'm at dinner parties in Cambridge and people are asking questions about Mormonism, I'll find myself saying, "We don't believe that" or "No, we really are like this." It's funny, when I talk to Mormons I tend to have my list of things when they ask what I don't like about the church, I'm like, "OK, I'll tell you." But when I'm with people who aren't LDS, I'm super defensive of the church because what people think in the United Kingdom especially is just so off the mark.

DN: You talked about in the book how it was at Cambridge that you moved away from actually practicing Mormonism. Was it at Cambridge that you felt like you could experiment with other things?

TW: It's something I wanted to do gradually. I've seen friends exit Mormonism in destructive ways and I just didn't want to do that. I wanted it to be slow and careful and thoughtful. I didn't want to suddenly do a bunch of things that I would never have done before. It's a policy I have in my life now whenever I feel like things are changing really quickly — even right now with the book things are changing really quickly — my instinct is to try to stay as grounded as I can and keep as much of the old around as I can, even while new things are coming in, and slowly change, steadily, but not violently. I think my relationship with the church was like that. When I came to Cambridge, I was involved in the ward for a little bit, but I did have a very gradual process of trying to work out what I thought a good life consisted of.

DN: What is the overall message you wanted people to get from your book?

TW: For me the book is about education and family. I was trying to write a story about how complicated family relationships can be and all the conflicted feelings that a person can have. You can really love someone and choose not to have them in your life and miss them every day and still be grateful you don't have to see them again. For me, the book is about education as an idea of how you create yourself, not just education as a way to get a better job or make a living, but as a way to make a person.

Westover tells the story of her isolated childhood and subsequent exploration into the world through education in beautiful, measured prose. Her compelling memoir is thrilling, but compassionate towards her family.

Distressing, depressing and hard to read at times, but definitely worth sticking with. Tara is raised in a fundamentalist Mormon household where she is taught that modesty and religion are placed above all else. She is "homeschooled" but her education doesn't go much further than Bible teachings. Her father, who she later recognizes as bipolar, is mentally and emotionally abusive and her brother is physically abusive to both Tara and other members of the family. Tara finally starts to pull away from the family after getting away to BYU for college, and then furthering her education at Cambridge and Harvard and realizes that her unhealthy family is causing her panic and crushing anxiety. But even as she pulls away from unhealthy relationships with her family in Idaho, she misses them and struggles with being estranged with them.

Very good read. And I'm so happy for Tara and her perseverance that came from nowhere but within herself for finding her strength to become educated and stand on her own.

Fascinating, captivating, spellbinding-and any other way to say that this book was hard to put down! I was immediately sucked in and read it in one sitting. Even for a kid from a "normal" family, Westover has accomplished a lot at a young age. When you factor in her unusual upbringing, those accomplishments become even more extraordinary. A must read.

NetGalley and Random House graciously provided me with this book. I’ve freely chosen to write a review, and my thoughts and opinions have not been influenced by this.

Educated is a great memoir from Tara Westover who did not go to public school, and was taught her parent’s version of the world, all in a tightly-held religious family community that started to raise question for her as she matured. As a teen, something deep inside begins to question everything she knows and was taught, and Tara embarks on a journey to discover who she is in search of the truth about what she’s experienced.

I could not put this book down. Many times, I had to stop and reflect about what I read because what was written resonated within me. We all identify with our parents views because it’s how we first see the world and begin to understand it. When something happens to bring those beliefs into question, our own understanding about ourselves and the world we live in comes into being. Tara’s journey takes us through much self-reflection, self-doubt, and self-assessment that ultimately culminates in a deeper healing and greater understanding of the outcome.

In the same vein as The Glass Castle, this is a great memoir not to be missed.

This is the author's memoir. She learned that she must tell her own story, not her sibling's story or her father's story, but her own. And in her own story she also came to know what it meant to be part of a family- "how a person ought to weigh their special obligations to kin against their obligations to society was a whole."

The author uses beautiful, somewhat complex language, which will inspire you to think and ponder, to paint her life as a young girl in rural Idaho and how this sheltered soul earned her PhD from Cambridge. Many of the scenes are focused on the mountain, Buck Peak, near her Idaho homestead, which guided her life.

Her father was like the feral horses that roamed this mountain. He could not be owned, and he could not be tamed. Her father was the incarnate of the Mormon prophets that he revered. He loved his family with the love and wrath of the Old Testament God.

Prophets in modern America have it hard and their families suffer even more. The author and her siblings lived the life that the early Western pioneers would have recognized- hard physical work, serious injuries, no formal schooling and limited contact with others. This Spartan life became another mountain for the author to overcome.

She was fortunate to be taught by world-class professors. One even called her his "Pygmalion" because she was basically a blank slate. While she achieved academic renown, she never reached a high point of hope. Her mountain always loomed larger.

"First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are."
More than just a "coming of age" story, this is a "coming to be a new person" story. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC.

A powerful memoir of overcoming an isolated and restrictive childhood and family to become part of the wider world through college.

Educated follows Sara's journey from being "home schooled" to earning PhD and multiple degrees from some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Although her journey can be rough to digest, it was a fairly quick read.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review *

To Be Educated or Not
BY JANET FROM FL ON MARCH 16, 2018
Well, here is another disappointing book… “Educated” by Tara Westover.

This book is depressing. This is a memoir of Tara’s life. It is one bad situation after another. I kept reading thinking, surely she will get out of that situation soon. But no, she keeps circling back even after she finally tries to leave. Her parents are abusive. Her brother is abusive. A couple of them are crazy, literally. I question her sanity for putting up with all this and keeping it a secret for so long.

I finally reached 80% done, with no hope in sight. I gave up! The book was messing with my mind. I was getting depressed from her story. How could her family be so mean? How can she be so enabling? I don’t want to know what happens next, because it will probably be bad. Enough!

No one in this family is educated. Tara attempts to get some education, but she never seems to learn anything useful for her life. She is lucky to still be alive.

The negativity goes on and on and on… There are better reads out there. I am on to my next book!

"It's strange how you give the people you love so much power over you"

I am in the minority on this one, but this did not blow me away. I wanted to read this after seeing so many high ratings. I was expecting to love this book but ended up feeling meh about it. One thing I had an issue with is that her family is described as survivalists who educated their children at home - many of which do not even have a birth certificate - but then they had many modern conveniences. Her father has a junkyard and a huge distrust of the government. Her Mother becomes a midwife at her husband's urging and makes tinctures and uses herbs to cure those in her family and in their community. I do realize that the family acquired the telephone due to her Mother's job as a mid-wife but then I wondered how they paid for everything.

Tara grows up free or wild. She didn’t bathe that often, didn’t wash her hands after using the restroom, and is unaware of world history, and is quite comfortable living around bad odors and smells. She is abused by an older brother and no one seems to notice, intervene, or even care. They seem to be a reckless group - example: multiple car accidents, etc.

I had a hard time believing some of the information presented. Case in point the first car accident in the book, Tara's father offered to pay for the damaged tractor. Where did they get the money? Just how much does farm equipment cost? It's not cheap, I know that. Even if the farm equipment is purchase is used it must be pricey. Plus, the damage to their car would mean they would need to purchase another. Then the family has another car accident. More money, lots of injuries, possible need for another vehicle, etc.

Plus, this family seemed to be very accident prone, falling from surfaces, fires, head injuries. Was this because they were raised without any rules and became reckless, or did bad things just happen to them?

Tara does want a better life for herself. She does go educate herself at home, so she can pass the test to get into College. College isn't cheap, nor are book, nor is housing or food. Again, I wondered how she paid for all of this. Plus, once she got to college, she didn't seem to mind that her roommates were upset with the smell in their home. Dirty dishes, not bathing, not having clean clothes. I get if this is the norm, in the home she grew up in but when faced with other's displeasure, I would think a smart girl like her would have taken the hint that being clean and living in a clean environment is the norm, not how she was raised. Plus, at home a young man even pointed out to her that her home smelled as did she.

There was a part of this book that I did enjoy. Tara's thirst for knowledge and teaching herself and gaining entrance to college without a formal education. I appreciated her struggles and having to learn how to "learn". She went on to achieve a lot in her life and it is impressive and commendable. Having said that, there were just too many questions raised why reading this. I don't care if someone is a survivalist, I would think one would still want their children to be safe and free of harm. The turning the blind eye to abuse was despicable. The family also had a lot of modern conveniences which did not gel with my idea of what a survivalist family would own or not own. But I am no expert on survivalist families. Her father clearly had some mental health issues and they contributed to his beliefs and possibly to their way of life.

What worked for me in this book was Tara's drive for a better life. How with very little support from her family, she went out on her own and obtained an education. I appreciated her drive and determination. Her book is well written and I realize this is her account of how she remembers things from her perspective. I just was left with questions hence the 3 star rating..

I received a copy of this book from Random House Publishing group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

See more of my reviews at www.openbookpost.com

I enjoy a good memoir and this one did not disappoint. It reminded me of "The Glass Castle" which I loved. Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho in the 1990s scrapping for metal with her 5 brothers and sister and no education to speak of (not even homeschooling.) Her father suffers from some form of mental illness (i. e. paranoia, manic depression.) Her mother, though loving at points, does not protect her children from the wrath of older brother Shawn. At the ripe age of 16, after self-educating herself with books and taking the ACT, Tara decides to leave her dysfunctional family and go to college. She keeps returning at different points, finding it difficult to completely separate herself from her upbringing and continuing to wonder if she deserves the better life she's carved out for herself.

4 stars for the courage of Tara and the ability to tell her story
0 stars for the horrific content and my unease in reading

Thank you to Tara Westover, Random House and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this memoir. Published 2/20/18


Minutes ago I finished the book Educated by Tara Westover. I would like to have days, maybe even weeks. to mull this book over before even trying to put my thoughts on paper. However due to time restraints my review has to be now.

So much of this memoir made me mad. The further I read, the more rage I felt. It was a wonder than any of these children made it out of the Westover family, out of the grip of their fanatical father and lying mother. I do not follow the Mormon religion. However I do have Mormon friends and they are by no means as irrational or dominating as Gene Westover.

First let me say this is not the prevalent actions of a survivalist. The hording of weapons and food and fuel and the securing of a safe place to live - yes - a survivalist. The fanatical preaching of male dominating females and this stringent belief in the Bible and God are not, in my knowledge, characteristics of a survivalist. Those are the characteristics of a fanatic - a lunatic. My philosophy is 'live and let live', as long as I do not see harm coming to others. The structure of this family was ever bit as potent as the strong hold Jim James had on his "flock" or that David Koresh had over the Branch Davidians. The Westover children barely had a chance.

I thought it was amazing that Tara made it out of that family. She was sucked back into that black void so many times, brain washed, and abused with no one coming to her aid. She will forever carry the scars of this horrific childhood. I applaud her strength and courage to fight her way out.

A family just such as the Westovers, is the reason that my professors were unable to convenience me to spin my Masters Degree in Social Work towards working in Children and Family Services. The crime of Tara living under these conditions will haunt me for a long time, there is no way I could have faced this challenge on a daily basis.

Tara Westover lives an isolated life in rural Idaho as the youngest of seven siblings with her paranoid, probably-bipolar father and herbalist mother. Her father is a religious fanatic who believes the "end of days" are near. He's suspicious of the government and never sends his children to school. The only medical care they receive is at hands of her mother, even for serious illnesses and injuries. Tara endures years of abuse at the hands of an older sibling but believing her parents she remains loyal to them spending her days helping her father in his dirty, dangerous junkyard or helping her mother mix herbal remedies. Finally, at 17, she attempts to go to college without ever having set foot in a classroom and ignorant of most of the outside world.

Westover's writing is luminous, descriptions leap off the page, the reader feeling they're observing her world so realistically, it feels like watching an award-winning movie. And speaking of awards, I expect this to garner many and be on many "Best of 2018" lists. Its unputdownable and gets 5/5 stars. A true triumph in every way.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a preview copy of this book.

This was by far one of the most engaging memoirs I have ever read. The story of Tara's upbringing was hard to read. I cannot really imagine the emotional and physical strength it took to grow up in that environment and to leave it behind and forge a new life.

This was to me, both a history and an exploration of psychological issues and their effect on family. I had read a bit about the Mormons, but her account was nothing like what I expected. Growing up in a family with both a bipolar father and a mother who will not stand up for her children, or get medical attention for serious injuries or mental health attention for her son or husband, while seeming to recognize some of the cognitive dissonance between beliefs and reality, it amazed me that 3 siblings escaped the insanity.

Tara Westover's parents raised their 7 kids in Idaho to fear government, authority, institutionalized medicine, and pretty much anything but God. The father forced his little kids to dangle from metal thrashing machinery in the family dump, to work with flame torches while doused with gasoline, stating "God is here, working right alongside us. He won't let anything hurt you. But if you are hurt, then that is His will." For the first third of this book I was on board and riveted, but then Tara mentions the family has TV and I wondered, well then why do you not know anything about the Holocaust, or the Twin Towers, or North and South Korea? Despite living in filth, not being inoculated, and suffering catastrophic injuries without medical supervision, they all survive intact? These kids aren't schooled, and yet three of them earn PhDs? So, I finished the book still riveted, but maybe not swallowing it all hook line and sinker.

While I feel the author's anguish, and credit her with an outstanding memoir that successfully moves the reader and instills great awe in her accomplishments against great odds... still I had trouble following her attempts at rationalizing all the crazy in her life. Regardless of how many pages she spends angsting about distancing herself from her family or worrying that she's caused a sibling to be disowned - I can only see that as being a good thing for all involved. Her big brother Shawn (who murders his pet dog and doesn't "waste good bullets on bitches") is a dangerous sociopath, regardless of whether it's genetic or due to brain injury. I was so frustrated through the entire second half of this book, that Tara never launches all the ammunition she has in terms of truth, reality, world view and perspective, at her warped family. I wanted the satisfaction of her crushing them with that, but I have to assume it's happened off-stage, ultimately, with the success of this excellent book.