I know things have been quiet around here for the past few weeks. I have not fallen off the face of the earth, but have been struggling hard to break out of a nasty reading slump! 😐 I think I must have started reading at least a half a dozen of books during that time, which by itself is very unusual for me – I’m the kinda gal who would stick with one book to the end. But when none of the books I started captivated me I knew it’s time to call the big guns! So after clocking many hours binge-watching Netflix comedies, I was ready for something serious and I decided to go with Tara Westover’s recent memoir Educated.

Educated is an extraordinary memoir. Tara grew up in a small town in Idaho raised by a father who firmly believed the world is coming to an end and did everything in his power to keep his children away from the government’s clutches, dangers of the world, and most of all the Illuminati. That meant the Westovers were living off the grid, so Tara didn’t have a birth certificate, a social security number, or a formal education even though she was supposed to be home-schooled. As a young child, most of Tara’s time was spent helping her parents at her father’s junkyard business and her mother’s midwifery practice. However, as time passed by Tara began to test her boundaries. With her mother’s help, she first enrolled in a dance class – Tara’s first contact with normalcy. But it ended when her dance recital received her father’s condemnation for being whorish! Without letting it put her down Tara, however, managed to take small steps towards her liberation, which ultimately gained her admission to Brigham Young University at the age of seventeen, and later on to the University of Cambridge for her PhD.

Coming from a country where education is a fundamental right and not sending kids to school is a punishable offence, at first, I was so pissed off at Gene Tara’s father for at least not homeschooling her. I say Gene because I felt Tara’s mother Faye didn’t have a voice in these matters. Gene was the family prophet, and Faye referred to him even when it looked like Faye didn’t buy into Gene’s explanations, which I later came to realize was stemmed from Faye’s belief that her role in the household was somehow subordinate to her husband’s. But then somewhere along the line, I started feeling less angry at Gene. Sure Gene was an eccentric and a religious nut. His crazy no-doctors rule put his family in harm’s reach more than once. But moments like when Gene pleaded Tara not to attend the University of Cambridge and stay in America so he could come to fetch Tara to safety when the world came to an end made it clear Gene was operating out of love and paranoia and not necessarily out of evilness. The fact that he resorted to words to convey his dissatisfaction towards the path Tara had chosen also confirmed my view – I think if Gene was acting out of malice he could have simply locked Tara up. But later on the way Gene handled the whole episode with Tara’s abusive older brother, who had brutalized Tara and her sister when they were young made me reevaluate him. Gene believed Tara was betraying her family by unfairly accusing her brother and thought it was all a result of Tara being possessed by the devil! So it’s no wonder why it must have been like the straw that broke the camel’s back to Tara which made her sever ties with her parents. Nonetheless, Educated is Tara’s sad reality, which in a way I suppose makes it our sad reality too to know that it’s not inconceivable that one might grow up without any idea of the things we take for granted every day even in the US; the wealthiest nation in the world…

Diificult to read at times, but hard to put down. Powerful!

Educated is an unforgettable story of the life of Tara Westover, who grew up in rural Idaho, the youngest of seven children to survivalist/extremist parents. She never stepped foot in a classroom until the age of 17, when she escaped the abuse and unsafe conditions at home by studying to take her ACT, and getting into BYU. Her memories of childhood and the years at home are harrowing, but the most gripping part of her story, for me, was the psychological processes she had to learn in order to survive, and then to relearn everything she had been taught: who to trust, what was safe and what was harmful, and how to live in the outside world. Westover's ability to learn after a foundation of no formal education is nothing short of inspiring, and she takes you on her journey as she attains her Bachelors and Masters degrees, and finally a Doctorate. Educated is a mesmerizing, shocking, and highly thought-provoking book that should challenge us all to consider what we believe and why, what defines safety, and who gets to frame our personal narratives. 4.5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and this publisher for allowing me to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a tough read, but well worth the time and effort. It is amazing that someone with little to no education and a difficult home life would be able to achieve such success.

Raised by survivalist Mormons, Tara Westover has a less than normal upbringing. She spends her days in her father's junkyard collecting scrap metal and dodging hunks of metal that her father throws around. She and her siblings are homeschooled (more unschooled) by their mother and pretty much left to raise themselves. Her parents are afraid of the government and hospitals and births are done at home. Tara and her siblings have never seen a dentist, have never visited a pediatrician, and aren't even sure of the day they were born. So at 17 when Tara tells her parents she wants to go to schools it is not accepted well. Her father is in shock and angry and her mother seems to go along with Tara's plan, as long as her father isn't around. Tara has a thirst for knowledge that can't be quenched. She soaks in every bit of history that she can. The Civil Rights Movement, the Holocaust, World Wars, all of these events she has never heard of. Tara eventually meets enough helpful people that she finds her way to Harvard and then Cambridge, earning her PhD. She longs to return home to her family, but wonders if they will ever be able to accept the person she has become.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading both aspects of Tara's life - her strange upbringing and her later education. I felt for her during her struggles but understood why she felt the need to break free from her parents. I highly recommend this book!

This was just horrible! Quit at 47%

Aside from the disjointed story telling and whether she is fabricating the facts doesn’t matter in the end. Why would Westover write about her pathetic parents like this? Her father came across as mentally ill, not a survivalist and her mother was useless. Nothing about this made for good reading. The stories were boring. Some compare this to Glass Castles, don’t get it twisted! There is
no comparison. GC is incredible and will be known to many as their favorite memoir ever. Educated is garbage. Too harsh? Sorry I just want to be clear since there are so many high ratings on Goodreads.
I tried really hard to get to the getting educated part but when it became apparent that she would be getting into college without a high school degree, well I just can’t. Someone tell me if she at least got her GED first, I couldn’t read 1 more page.

This book reminded me and a friend who also read it of The Glass Castle. Some parts are difficult to get through, but they're worth reading to learn about this incredible woman's survival of a traumatic childhood.

I must tell you..........

Educated: A Memoir scalded the very edges of my soul. It took me through a whole gamut of emotions from belief to disbelief, from hesitation to doubt to wariness, and most importantly, from the weightiness of compassion and empathy to the restrictions of frustration and anger.

Tara Westover tells her story straight out through the reflections seen by her own eyes, her own jagged experiences, and in her own words. As you step inside of Tara's story you will certainly have moments in which vexation will sit down right next to you and shake its head in disbelief and sorrow. Truth comes in variations of light.

We live in a world in which we sift life experiences of our own and others through an internal grid. Does it shake out right in our minds? Can we relate to any of this? Or do we see the world through tunnel vision? Our experiential backgrounds, existing in the light of positivity or in the deepest caves of darkness, form the prism for which we view life. We form our values and codes of conduct normally through trial and error. We receive feedback and reinforcement, ideally, through our family unit. Tara's self-expressed reality is a reality for more individuals in some way, shape or form that we cannot even begin to imagine.

There is no sugar-coating this story. Be prepared for that. Gene Westover is a self-proclaimed prophet of impending doom. His social revolutionary nature and his transfixion with his skewed religious beliefs bled into this family with dire emotional and physical consequences. His children seemed to be no more than members of a work crew who were manipulated and mind-controlled in his demands for loyalty at all costs.

Faye, the mother, left a "normally functioning" childhood home only to be squelched under the thumb of a very sick man. She had that internal grid of right and wrong within her, initially, and buckled under to his demands at the price of her own children's well-being. No salve, no herb, no tincture can cure that, dear woman.

We, as readers, watch the slow, painful motions of Tara trying to break free from this toxic environment. I rallied behind her in her transition. But I mourned her inability to warn Emily of the nightmare that she was encountering in the likes of her demented brother, Shawn, before they married. I also mourned Tara's constant returning to the seen of the crime, almost like a battered wife syndrome, seeking approval and acceptance.........
seeking to be re-engaged with this dysfunctional tribe. Gene and Shawn poisoned this well.

While I celebrate Tara's eventual life achievements, I know in my heart that she will always be broken inside from the entrapment she lived through and continues to live through. "Nothing touches me" are her own words. It is most difficult to bloom in life when your very thoughts are suffocated before they can even find a voice.

It is my sincere hope that Tara's words, truth-bound or not, will reach into that darkness that exists in others right now in order for them to find their own voice. Breaking free seems like the weight of granite tied to one's ankles. Difficult, but not impossible "if only" the someone, somewhere were more vigilant to the plight of our neighbors. We, as a society, are so observant and wise after the fact. Seeing eyes that blur into blindness.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House and to Tara Westover for the opportunity.

Raw, intense and honest; Educated is engaging retelling of an extraordinary upbringing. I could feel from every word, from every sentence how personal and authentic this tale was. It has been a long time since I read such a straightforward and shocking yet gripping and powerful book.

Untraditional childhood with no birth certificate or public school, being sheltered from world happenings and having almost zero knowledge of history, dealing with volatile family and their unconventional lifestyle... I couldn’t stop reading once Tara’s sheltered world clashed with the world out there when she entered school for the first time at the age of seventeen. Author didn’t take any shortcuts while writing her memoir and I ate it all up.

For a debut, Educated has not only engaging content but also surprisingly beautiful prose. The writing flows easily and makes this book readable in a best way possible. I’m not sure if this book was a one time thing or not, but Tara Westover is definitely and author to look out for and I truly hope she tries her hand at writing a fiction as well.

I rarely read memoirs, mainly because I struggle with the lack of storytelling in them since memoirs are usually full of only-telling-no-showing writing style. However, this memoir reads like a novel and the fact that it describes real events only strengthens the reading experience. So even if you are strictly a novel reader like me, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to you even though it is a nonfictional one. You won’t regret it!

5★
“Dad waves at a tower of cars and says, “Luke, cut off those tanks, yeah?” And Luke says, “Sure thing, Dad.” He lays the torch against his hip and strikes flint. Flames erupt from nowhere and take him. He screams, fumbles with the twine, screams again, and takes off through the weeds.“

There are life-and-death incidents and accidents and attacks all through this memoir, which reads like some sort of science fiction or dystopian thriller. We know Tara survives, because she wrote it, but I will give nothing else away.

Read the long, informative blurb on Goodreads for a good summary. I can’t really add to that other than to say this is a compelling read. Father and Mother are fundamentalist, Mormon preppers, preparing for when the government comes to get them. Tara has grown up with warning stories, and since she and her siblings are ”home-schooled” (meaning they work in the junkyard with their dad instead of going to school), she had no frame of reference. This is about the Weavers.

“‘There’s a family not far from here,’ Dad said. ‘They’re freedom fighters. They wouldn’t let the Government brainwash their kids in them public schools, so the Feds came after them.’ Dad exhaled, long and slow. ‘The Feds surrounded the family’s cabin, kept them locked in there for weeks, and when a hungry child, a little boy, snuck out to go hunting, the Feds shot him dead.’”

Why wouldn’t she believe him? When you’re a little kid, your parents know everything. When you go to school, you may start questioning your parents because you think your teacher knows everything. Tara’s teacher is her mother, and her mother is devoted to her father. She can’t understand why one minute her father is laughing about the danger she faces clambering on top of piles of junk to separate bits for sale, and the next minute he looks terrified, stockpiling stuff. This is not a spoiler, it’s very early in the book.

“Fourteen years after the incident with the Weavers, I would sit in a university classroom and listen to a professor of psychology describe something called bipolar disorder. Until that moment I had never heard of mental illness. I knew people could go crazy—they’d wear dead cats on their heads or fall in love with a turnip—but the notion that a person could be functional, lucid, persuasive, and something could still be wrong, had never occurred to me.”

She faced danger daily, forced to work in the junkyard with her father, who was tossing machinery parts in bins. She was nearly brained and cut with something and called to him to stop, but he kept right on throwing.

“I almost had it when Dad flung a catalytic converter. I leapt aside, cutting my hand on the serrated edge of a punctured tank. I wiped the blood on my jeans and shouted, ‘Don’t throw them here! I’m here!’ Dad looked up, surprised. He’d forgotten I was there. When he saw the blood, he walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, honey,’ he said. ‘God is here, working right alongside us. He won’t let anything hurt you. But if you are hurt, then that is His will’.

Her grandparents were not fundamentalists or preppers. Mother’s mother, Grandma-over-in-town, couldn’t believe her daughter hadn’t told Tara and the others to wash with soap. Basic cleanliness was overlooked. This was not a clean, lovely, homespun existence. This was pretty much squalor.

Her father pushed her mother to become a midwife after she had assisted the local midwife before she moved. Mother was frightened, but after a series of accidents and injuries to herself, which gave her migraines and probably brain damage, she became completely absorbed in her potions and lotions and herbal and homeopathic remedies for everything. She started clicking her fingers to “listen” for whether somebody had cancer or other infection.

Father’s response to every ailment or injury was “Bring him home. Your mother will deal with it”, including the kid in the first quote, who was on fire, running through the fields.

Brains spilling out on the highway? Your mother will deal with it. Broke your bones? Your mother will deal with it.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so desperately real and tragic. Tara is now estranged from her parents, because rather than believe her, they’ve sided with a brother who lives on their property. Understandable. Easier to ‘believe’ him than his sister who’s gone off and gotten herself all high-and-might educated, eh?

Westover never brags, but often questions her own sanity. To deal with her family, she had to withdraw into her mind sometimes as if she weren’t really sitting, stuck listening to her father’s one-hour diatribe about the Feds or whomever he’s down on at the moment. Mostly he just calls her “a whore”, but it turns out they don’t even know how old she is. They registered the first few kids but kept the other off the government books.

When they threaten to throw Tara out for something, she protests to her mother to intervene on her behalf. It’s not fair - she’s too young!

. . . but when I was your age I was living on my own, getting ready to marry your father.’
‘You were married at sixteen?’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You are not sixteen.’
I stared at her. She stared at me. ‘Yes, I am. I’m sixteen.’
She looked me over. ‘You’re at least twenty.’ She cocked her head. ‘Aren’t you?’
We were silent. My heart pounded in my chest. ‘I turned sixteen in September,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ Mother bit her lip, then she stood and smiled. ‘Well, don’t worry about it then. You can stay. Don’t know what your dad was thinking, really. I guess we forgot. Hard to keep track of how old you kids are.’

Unbelievable. Except it isn’t. There are plenty of backwood pockets in the good ol’ US of A that have families cut off from everybody, but eventually, the kids may be enticed away, causing terrible family rifts. And when the potions and lotions start making money, well . . . That’s enough from me.

Read it! Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted (not NEARLY enough).

Perhaps I was born with cynical doubting genetics but I'm not buying what this author is selling. I know I'm in the minority here but it's just too far fetched to believe everything claimed in this book.

Even though she graduated from a prestigious institution (Cambridge University), a far different start in life was had by Tara Westover as described in her new memoir titled EDUCATED. This book was a February Library Reads selection where it is described as follows: "Westover recounts her childhood growing up in a strict Mormon family, ruled by an erratic father, and living off the grid in Idaho. Westover compellingly sketches her years growing up, her relationships with siblings, encounters in the town nearby, and the events that eventually drove her to leave and pursue formal education" first at Brigham Young and later at Cambridge. EDUCATED is a difficult read in parts, especially due to her family circumstances with a paranoid, mentally ill father, a mother who suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and a violent, abusive older brother. Additional reviews can be found in The Economist ("A riveting memoir of a brutal upbringing") and The Wall Street Journal (where Susan Wise Bauer asks, "why some learners latch onto knowledge thirstily while others don't"). Westover's EDUCATED has been compared to The Glass Castle so do look for this new memoir if you liked Jeannette Wall's work.

Links in live post:
http://libraryreads.org/february-2018-libraryreads-list/
https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21737019-tara-westover-made-it-compound-idaho-harvard-riveting-memoir-brutal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-alone-at-the-summit-1518813948

I don’t pick up memoirs often unless if its a memoir of someone I know or somene historically famous. I picked this book up because let’s face it, it was called Educated and I’m a teacher, and I kept seeing my book friends post about it.

I found Tara’s upbringing to be so interesting. Her father was a religious man, and it seemed to be her mother was as too even if she was more laid back. However, as I continued to read and found Tara’s mother working with chakras and energies, I couldn’t help but think how much of an issue that could have caused in a religious Mormon household but the father seemed to welcome it. The oils and medicines did not surprise me but the energies and chakras did. At this point, I began thinking of her father as pretty unreliable. It seemed as if his excentric thoughts were really just to benefit what he was thinking that day but without much guidance and as I continued to read, this thought came up over and over again. However, all in all her father, Gene, was likable in his own way. He had redeeming factors and times in her memoir where his actions surprised me and I enjoyed reading about him. Without spoiling anything however, I had a hard time condoning his behaviors. I feel like sometimes the most religious can be blinded by their cruelty in thinking it’s okay for religious reasons.

The other people in Tara’s family were all very intriguing. Her brother, Shawn, I think intriguied me the most. His upbringing was so traumatic that his personality and adult behaviors were angry and vicious. I see this often in my students and it is important to understand how childhood trauma can effect someone lifelong. I felt for his character as it was sad to see how he turned out as a person when he was so likable in the beginning. It was also interesting to see what Tara blamed his personality on when she of course knew these traits were present long beforehand. Shawn had some redeeming factors which made me feel bad for him even as the victimizer.

I find her desire to learn inspiring. I have so many students who would love to work throughout their life without obtaining academic knowledge. Tara’s desire for more was inspirational. I guess it goes to show that so many people want the opposite of what they have. This can go either way obviously.

Tara’s learning about the Holocaust was very interesting to me as we as teachers often assume that prior knowledge has been built-in previous years. The Holocaust, a topic we think every one knows about single-handedly made Tara a freak in her own terms. The chapter really had me thinking about my own teaching methods.

All in all, the book is eye-opening. She went through more in her life than I could ever imagine and I find her inspiring. I hope everyone gets to read it as I think we could all learn from Tara’s upbringing. I enjoyed the read and suggest everyone to read this as it only helps us understand what perseverance can do.

In the manner of The Glass House, this is a story of survival of the spirit and the body. Ironically, it is the story of a young woman coming of age in a survivalist family in a remote mountain location of Idaho. Tara Westover and her brothers and sisters are raised by a possibly schizophrenic father and a psychologically abused mother to believe that they are living in the End of Days and that their survival depends of their total self-sufficiency. While the family claims to be homeschooling their children, the children are uneducated. Tara and one other brother are auto-didactic and, with great difficulty, manage to transfer their sketchy book learning to university degrees. The other children in the family stay within control of the family and at the mercy of one seriously deranged brother who physically tortures his siblings on bad days and fiercely protects them on good days.

Mrs. Westover, who was raised in a traditional Mormon family, has subjugated herself to a life without convenience, social contact, and developed the skills and abilities to be an herbal healer and a skilled midwife. The dangers of being an unlicensed practitioner are clearly illegal, but this family has no time or respect for laws.

This is a page turner of the first degree. Through horrific accidents, terrifying physical abuse, and a dysfunctional family that defies even textbook descriptions of dysfunction, Tara's survival is questionable although her indomitable spirit seems to assure that she will find her way through the morass.

Compellingly told, unbelievably taut, this is a book that every book club will adopt and discuss heatedly. Highly recommended. A guaranteed bestseller.

Riveting, searing account of Westover's childhood and girlhood in a Mormon fundamentalist household. Violent and profoundly disturbing events are interspersed with deeply gentle moments. Read alongside Patricia Lockwood's Priestdaddy for a group discussion about girlhood/growing up under religion and patriarchy.

In the first section of the book we read about Tara's childhood set in the beautiful foothills of Buck's Peak, Idaho. Initially her upbringing sounds quirky - no birth-certificate, no schooling, not much in the way of hygiene. We soon realize that her dad shows signs of a mental illness - paranoia, depression, illusions of grandeur etc. The most shocking part of the book, is his total disregard for his family's safety, some of the injuries we read about are lost fingers, several cases of severe brain trauma, and two horrible burns. He believes that God will keep them save or miraculously heal them if necessary, no medical intervention needed. Her parents also allow one of her elder brothers to physically and emotionally abuse Tara and her sister, as they choose to believe that this is not happening. One of the things that works well in Educated is that Tara balances all these upsetting things with happier memories - her father allowing her to join the town's theater, and loving moments shared with her brothers.

When her formal education starts we realize how isolated her upbringing was, she knows almost nothing about the world beyond her immediate community and her father's beliefs. As time passes she slowly assimilates into mainstream life, and starts to question elements of her childhood. When she raises this with her parents, and refuses to back down, they disown her. They also convince everyone, sometimes even her (and me), that her memories are false. So escaping and becoming educated, gave her a voice, which caused her to lose her family - something she is still struggling with. In an interview she says: " ...I realized I had reconciled with the things in my past that had been bad, but I don’t think I had reconciled with losing the things that had been good. "

I definitely recommend this well-written, thought-provoking memoir.

I have mixed feelings. The first half of the book had inconsistencies that left me with more questions than answers, and there is some controversy with family members who have come forward saying there are inaccuracies. A memoir is the telling of events from the perspective of the author. It's her story to tell. I hope she wrote the book in good faith, and this is her perception of the truth as she remembers it. Perhaps her interpretation of some of the events are different than her siblings. It happens.

The second half of the book is not only about her education, it's a horrific description of the physical abuse she suffered from one of her brothers. She writes with clarity the emotional devastation and consequences of the abuse and the pain of her parents disbelief and lack of support. I wish the author the best and hope she and her family can get the help they need and find a way to heal.

I finished reading ‘Educated: A Memoir’ written by Tara Westover a few days ago. I wanted to give myself some time to reflect on my thoughts about the book before writing this review. Several of my Goodreads friends have given this book glowing reviews, and now I see why. This memoir is at times horrifying and at other times heartwarming. It’s a tale of the triumph of the human body, and the human spirit over sometimes medieval like philosophies and practices. It’s a story about surviving the family you’re born into and carving a life for yourself separate and apart from that family. I think that we all have family survival stories. No family is perfect and we all come out with a few scars. Tara Westover emerges with many physical and psychological scars, but the miracle is that she emerges.

Tara was the youngest of seven children raised in rural Idaho. Her parents are Mormon fundamentalists, and her father is an ardent survivalist who was further radicalized in his beliefs by the incident that the FBI has with the Randy Weaver family in Idaho. Tara was never sent to school, and was rarely even home-schooled. She learned how to read, but that was about it. Instead she was put to work helping her mother make plant based tinctures, and when she got old enough (eleven or twelve) she was sent out to work alongside her father and brothers in the family junkyard. Tara’s brother ‘Shawn’ (she has given him a false name in the book) had some traumatic brain injuries from a car accident and scrapyard accidents. He was very abusive to all of the siblings who remained at home. Neither of the parents would acknowledge that Shawn was in the wrong. They usually gave him a pass because he was ‘disciplining’ them in order to help them learn to better walk in the way of their religious beliefs. Her descriptions of Shawn’s abuse and her parents subsequent lack of protection was heart wrenching. (Trigger warning for abuse survivors. Some scenes are pretty graphic.)

When she is sixteen, Tara is convinced by one of her older brothers, Tyler, that she really needed to leave the family for her own safety, and that education could be her means of escape. Tyler had studied for the ACT (pre-college entrance exam) on his own, and scored high enough to gain entry into BYU. He encouraged Tara to try to follow the same path. With that encouragement Tara set out to teach herself mathematics, science, grammar, and all the other things that would be covered in the ACT. Eventually she scored high enough to be admitted to BYU. She started attending college at the age of 17. BYU would be her first time attending any type of formal education, and her first time living away from home. She had so much to learn about the world, society, history, and herself. She often struggled to balance the things she learned in college against the dogma she was taught at home. The dissonance between those two realms caused her severe anxiety and made her question her place in the world and eventually caused a mental breakdown.

She eventually earned the prestigious and highly competitive Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She went on the attended both Cambridge and Harvard. She earned a PhD in intellectual history and political thought from Cambridge. All the while she continued to have contact with her family who tried to persuade her that her pursuit of a life outside of their belief structure would ultimately lead to her death when the imminent end of the world occurred. When she returned home for visits, Shawn would continue to physically abuse her, and her parents would continue to minimize and justify his actions. Eventually for the sake of her own mental health and safety she had to stop visiting the family compound in Idaho.

While this is a harrowing story, it is also a hopeful one. Tara shows how strong the human spirit can be as it to tries overcome an untenable situation. She tells her story with a matter-of-factness that belies to some degree the underlying stresses that must have been each family member’s constant companion. She was not made bitter by her experiences, and explains her journey with clear-eyed grace. This was an amazing and inspirational journey.

Thank-you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing and the author, Tara Westover for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This memoir tells an incredible tale, one you would not even believe had we not heard of similar situations in the past. I am still struggling to grasp how someone who had no formal education until college could write something so well. Westover taught herself all she needed to until she was able to apply for college, being accepted to Brigham Young. It was not until age seventeen that she learned of major world events like the Holocaust. Given the fact that her family was far removed from society, scratching out a living on the mountain by salvaging metal from her father's junkyard and assisting her mother's midwifery work, survivalism is all the author ever knew. Despite the increasing violence of one of her brothers as he targeted her, going so far as to force her head-first into the toilet for some perceived slight, to Westover, Buck Peak was home.

I could not put this book down. It was literally a struggle for me to do so. But, once having finished the book, it has taken a while for me to fully comprehend what I read and to decompress from it. I can not even fully grasp how she must feel, to this day. Her childhood was both idyllic (the freedom to roam whenever so inclined) and a nightmare (no schooling, no doctor/medicine, a psychotic brother). She loves her family fiercely even as they continue to reject her since she left. I can't even reconcile them, it seems impossible.

We see her religious fanatic of a father, ruling the the family with an iron fist. He has taught his children to distrust anything from the government. As a result they hoard weapons and food for the coming Days of Abomination, while foregoing things we consider standard parts of civilization - birth certificates, medical care, public schooling. As the story went on, and terrible accident after terrible accident occurred I kept thinking, surely this is the time they will HAVE to seek medical treatment. Yet it never happened, despite car accidents, explosions, and all sorts of mishaps that no one else would bat an eye at for going to the emergency room. Yet it was always Tara's mother to the rescue with her herbs and tinctures. So many times I wanted to scream at her parents, to make them see what they were doing to their children, but even if I did, and they could hear me, nothing would change. Not only is Tara's father one to be feared, but one of her older brothers as well. His violence increased rapidly over time and Tara bore the brunt of it. He could have killed her more than once, and no one in her family would have said a word. That is terrifying and heartbreaking and infuriating. How many other children are living through the same situation now, and how many will not be able to make it out like Westover did? There are times also where we see a glimmer of who her mother might have been had she not married Tara's father. While she defers to him almost always, there are these slivers of time where it appears she too might break free. But the moments are fleeting and do not come along often.

I can not for one moment fathom how Westover could even want to have a relationship with any of the family members still living on Buck Peak. The bond was so strong in her youth, from her days on the mountain, that it causes her time and again to want to be a part of the family while keeping her new life as well. And perhaps it is also something I do not necessarily even need to understand for myself. The things that happen in this book defy believability at every turn, and yet they all survive. And even while she was out discovering the real world, the call of the mountain, her family, her home remained strong. This is certainly not a criticism of her and I hope it is not taken that way. I just can't understand it and I admire her for trying to reconcile both portions of her life today. It would be so easy for Westover to renounce it all and go back to the mountain; she loves her family deeply. But she also knows now that there is a whole wide world out there. I don't know if those two pieces will ever fit together for her. I hope they will. One of the hardest parts of the book for me was specifically with her mother, begging her to see, and her mother refusing. There was a brief time where it seemed like Westover was getting through to her mother and sister, and then suddenly everything went back to the way it had always been.That was awful to read, so heartbreaking.

Even so, despite all the brutality and shock of Westover's education both before she left and after, this is an important book and one I highly recommend.

This was a very interesting read, and an eye opening look into the authors long road to discovery and to finding her own truth.
I am intrigued by the authors strength and how she was strong enough to leave her situation, but yet weak enough to always fall back into it. I guess it was always the hope that the family would change in some ways,her ingrained beliefs and also the pull of the land.
Tara grew up in a family that had very strong views about the world and religion and what could happen if those beliefs were challenged. It was a hard life of manual labor and and lack of schooling, as the father did not believe in public education, he was a person with no real empathy and seems to put his children at risk quite often with his need to get things done on his terms, this is explained more as you get into the story. The father is also a survivalist and always prepping for the doomsday scenario, stocking food ammunition and whatever might be needed to ride it out.
Her mother became a midwife and then an herbalist, something that took off as you will read later in the book, due to treating her husband after an accident.
The relationship between siblings, was good in some cases, but very bad in others. Half of the siblings went on to get a high education and others never left the beliefs the father had instilled in them. It was an interesting study to follow the family dynamics.
I loved how determined the author was to get a good education, even when she doubted herself. It is quite an impressive journey.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of this book.