This book kept me absolutely engaged from beginning to end. Tara's writing style is beautiful, and she has a gift of storytelling that makes you feel like you are witnessing events first hand. Her story is at times devastating, always powerful, and ultimately inspiring. By the end of the book, I could relate to her emotional and spiritual journey in such a real sense, even though my background and education could not be more different. I hope she continues to write! I highly recommend this book to all who are on their own journeys of finding truth and hope even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty.

A brave, moving exploration of family ties and coming to terms with one’s own truth.

Tara Westover's account of being brought up by Mormon isolationists was a real eye opener. Her story of abuse at the hands of her brother must have been hard for her to share with the world. Tara shows us that anyone can achieve greatness.

Educated is a memoir about perseverance and tenacity. The author grew up in a very bizarre, dysfunctional family. She was never formally educated, yet received an advanced degree from Oxford. She endured much abuse from her brother and witnessed a fracturing of the family that continues to this day. A very interesting read.

Westover's life will make you feel like things are possible; you can accomplish anything, overcome anything, be anyone you want. Phenomenal. There are not a whole lot of words I want to say here, just these 5 stars and this quote that moves the world.

"...a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world:
"It is a subject on which nothing final can be known."
The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations."

Tara Westover recounts her childhood and youth in her family of fundamental Mormons in Idaho, but the memoir is not about Mormonism. Terrified by the events at Ruby Ridge, the Westovers strive to live off the grid, preparing for the End of Days, being born at home, not attending school or consulting doctors or nurses. Four of the seven children don't have birth certificates and Tara uses pseudonyms for her parents and most of her siblings.
"Gene," the father runs a scrap yard and exposes his children to many hazards by forcing them to work there and mother "Faye" acts as area midwife and successful herbal healer. Despite a haphazard homeschooling, Tara manages to obtain a higher education on many levels.

A memoir of growing up with a parent with mental illness, that sidelines as a memoir growing up in a strict religious household.
Tara Westover’s family lived according to rules that stemmed from the Mormon religion, but morphed (by her father) into a tyrannical, suffocating, dangerous creed. The children didn’t go to school, have birth certificates for much of their lives, or get proper medical care for the litany of life-threatening injuries they experience due to their father’s worldview.
Tara finally takes her education into her own hands - this book tells that grueling tale. At times hard to read, this is an important story about mental health and the resilience of the human spirit.

Riveting! I was hardly able to put it down (had to because it's too close to Christmas and had other things to get done!). Tara Westover has written a brilliant memoir and takes us on her journey from a barely home-schooled young girl to her achievement of a PhD from Cambridge. But what a journey lies between. I'm still trying to process all that she has experienced, and am thankful that by the end of the book, she has achieved a healthy distance from those events.

Tara is the youngest child of 7, growing up in what is purported to be a strict Mormon home in Idaho. Her father is clearly disturbed, and her mother is a willing participant in his paranoid worldview. He doesn’t believe in public education or doctors; he declares that the children are home-schooled, and that means that he belittles them for wanting to learn from books, and has them working in his junkyard, or helping their mother with her herbal medicine business. (Ironically, three of the children eventually earn Ph.D. degrees; the others don’t even have a GED.) She is abused by one brother who nearly kills her, but the parents obliviously deny it. They have labeled the author as a tool of the devil and cut her off from the family, though she is still in contact with some members. She was so lucky to get help from some kind faculty members along the way, but clearly is scarred from growing up in this abusive situation. An intense and disturbing memoir.

It is amazing what one can do with the life they are given and this is shown fully in the life story of Tara Westover. This story is engaging, heartbreaking, and triumphant as you see Tara grow and change and take control of her life.

If I didn't know this was a memoir I would think it was fiction for how outlandish the story seemed at times. It was a great story of an interesting and intense life.

What a gripping story this was. Tara Westover's personal story of her unconventional childhood and how she rose above it was a very interesting, readable and inspiring tale. My only disappointment came from the fact that the book was slightly different than what I was expecting. When I chose the book, I did so because I was primarily interested in her educational experience. Her struggles and the effect that it had on her when her world started to open up. This was addressed in the book but was not the focus as I had expected it to be. However the focus on her family's story did not disappoint at all. It is the kind of book that opens your eyes and teaches you about the world while still being an engrossing read. This will be on my 2018 recommendation list for sure.

This memoir captivated me from chapter one and continues to haunt me long after I finished it. This is a compelling, can't-stop-reading story perfect for readers of all genres. Moving, emotional and uplifting!

Educated shows the downside of homeschooling, which many people are familiar with today because of the popularity of homeschooling megafamilies such as the Duggars and the Bateses. There's nothing wrong with homeschooling in and of itself, but it demands time and effort on the parents' part (not to mention a good education for themselves) as well as regular, strict, rigorous testing to be certain the homeschooled students are actually learning. Such wasn't the case for Tara Westover and her family. Their homeschooling consisted of their mom having a handful of outdated textbooks and letting them read them if they wanted. In reality, they spent much of the time they should have been learning working for their abusive and mentally ill father in his junkyard. In a family of seven children, only three would actually have a formal education. (All three eventually earned doctorates - no thanks to their family, but due to their own incredibly hard work and outside help.) In fact, one of the adult sons wanted to get a GED but when his tutor evaluated him, she found that he had the equivalent of a 4th or 5th grade education. He chose not to work toward the GED at that point. When Tara decided to go to college - having never set foot in a classroom before - she had to teach herself enough math and science to pass the ACT. When she began studying at BYU, she found that she had no real study skills, lacked basic knowledge that other students had about such things as American history, and only knew how to write in a stilted, formal, old-fashioned manner. The fact that she ended up with a doctorate from Cambridge University is amazing and wonderful. Still, it came at a great personal cost to her. Even though this is a book about personal triumph, it's also very disturbing and depressing. Even so, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Absolutely incredible! I devoured this book in a day. The strength that Tara had to do what was best for herself and no one else is astounding. A beautiful display of a courage and inner strength makes this a book I'll always come back to. I've already recommended this book to a dozen people, I encourage everyone to read it if given the chance.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a phenomenal memoir! When I requested a copy I thought I would enjoy Tara's story, but I had no idea it would be so gripping. She was raised in a strict Mormon family with a bipolar father, an abusive brother, and not much contact with society. In fact, she was taught that most people aren't as religious as her family because they do things like drinking coke and shopping on Sunday. Most startling is the fact that she and her siblings were not provided the opportunity to have an education, either at home or in any organized school. I am astonished that she and two of her brothers broke out of the system and have been incredibly successful in the post-secondary school setting.

The heart of the novel's message, at least from my perspective, is that of a woman deciding who she wants to be, how she would like to shape her life, and standing up for those things even when it meant losing the love of her family. Her determination and perseverance are a testimony to the fact that no one is ever "stuck" - we all have within us the power to change, even when the roadblocks seem insurmountable.

Thank you Tara for sharing your story!

This is an INCREDIBLE memoir. I was gripped from the first page and stayed up late to finish. Westover tells her impossible story in vivid, yet almost detached detail. Her writing style creates a fast-paced read with unexpected moments throughout. One of the best books I read this year. Highly recommend.

I am so grateful to NetGalley and Random House for making this book available to me. This is one of those rare, special books that I'll never forget. I still find myself, long after finishing the memoir, thinking about Tara and her dysfunctional family. Her story was gut-wrenching, brutal, shocking, yet inspirational...difficult to read, but harder to put down. It's provides a great life lesson--for both adults and teens--that anyone can rise above a bad situation. I can't wait to recommend it to my teacher friends.

This memoir had an effect on me and I want to recommend it to everyone. Educated by Tara Westover is a memoir about family obligations, systems of control, and the power of education. It was a hard, but good read.

Westover grew up in a strict, Mormon household in rural middle America with parents who had their own interpretation of Mormonism that they proselytized to their children and used to condemn others’ interpretations of divine faith, including other Mormons. The parents did not trust the government, which extended to not birthing most of their children in hospitals because they were part of the evil “medical establishment”, not legally recording most of their children’s births until many years later, not immunizing their children or permitting them to visit doctors for care in favor of homeopathy, and not enrolling their children in schools for fear the schools would brainwash their children with nonsense. The denial of all of these things to their children, particularly access to an education as the children weren’t really schooled at home either, was a way to indoctrinate the children into the parents’ belief system, bound the children to their parents’ sphere of control so that the children may never leave, and limit the children from access to other ways of thinking that would allow the children to be able to question their family’s way of life.

Westover’s tale highlights how important access to an education is as she details the life circumstances of her siblings — those who managed to be admitted to college, after secretly studying for standardized testing, went on to receive doctorates, whereas the others never received high school diplomas or GEDs and subsequently had limited job options and continued to be employees of their parents’ businesses as they had been since they were children. The memoir is broken into three parts, beginning with Westover’s childhood, transitioning into Westover’s teen years when she enrolls in an undergraduate program, and the last pieces include her venturing to another part of the world for education purposes and having her worldview expanded even more than her undergraduate experiences initially opened. While education definitely plays a central role in this memoir, a large part of Westover’s story involves controlling family dynamics, the emotional abuse that often rains down from the controlling heads of household, unfettered physical abuse that family members conveniently ignore or outright deny because acknowledgement of its actuality could challenge their pleasant forms of reality, and outright misogyny about a women’s place in the family and in the world that is shielded from question by religious morales.

While Westover’s education granted her access to many things, it also created many conflicts with her family and led to estrangements from certain members. Becoming “educated” isn’t always cost-free and Westover’s story illuminates some of the challenges that can be associated with advancing oneself, whilst one’s family tries to hold them back. This was a book that I needed to read and I hope that it is enlightening for others.

Everybody loves survivors' memoirs. We especially like to cheer them on their way to freeing themselves and finally making it. Tara Westover's story is one such survivor's tale. What's unique about it is how she used the power of her intellect. This fantastically gifted, talented and brilliant young woman was deprived of a conventional education through normal schools by her extreme, paranoiac, religious zealot of a father who saw conspiracy of iluminati everywhere including public school system and healthcare system. His children were pulled out of schools, or never sent to one, never allowed to use doctors and hospitals even in the most life-threatening circumstances. She was educated instead through her life experiences within this very dramatic and abusive family whose particular brand of religion served to cover the subjugation and abuse of women. Her lessons were about paranoia, subjugation, fanaticism, humiliation and helplessness. The cognitive dissonance between what she was experiencing and what she was told her experience was, led her to a loss of herself. The fact that she kept journals helped her to discern what was real and what was not, but in view of eyewitnesses denying her accounts, she often was unsure and kept doubting herself. The required demanded loyalty to the crazy family almost destroyed her. Only through unbelievable power of the intellect and discerning thinking, when she finally decided to leave and enroll in college, she was able to start making sense of her life. I have never before read such heart-stopping and heart-wrenching book. I was reminded of Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels in which he reworked his particular trauma. Tara Westover is a gifted intellectual, an analytical thinker to whom a professor at Cambridge University referred as "pure gold" speaking of her power of thinking and reasoning. Through study of history and historians she was able to see many view points and discover that her own perspective was a valid thing. She then started to write her own history. It is a fast read, hard to put down page turner although at times one needs to stop, simply because the degree of intensity of terrible things happening is so high that the reader needs to take breaks. I am in complete awe of the power possessed by Tara Westover and her ability to overcome such deep trauma. All those who helped her, various professors along the course of her studies, deserve a great deal of appreciation for recognizing her abilities and giving a helping hand. Ultimately she obtained her education at Cambridge and Harvard universities which elevated her into the peaks of scholarly thinking and placed her among great thinkers as an equal. The revenge was sweet. However Tara Westover never stopped loving her family, she did her best trying to remove herself and to understand. This is simple a feat of marvel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about adversity but also about intellectual pursuits.

Thank you NetGalley for loaning an electronic version of the reader's copy of this title.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for making this copy of Educated available. All opinions are my own.

The Glass Castle meets Gap Creek and earns a PhD.
Can I give this six stars?? More in-depth review to come.

UPDATE:
It took me about a week or so to digest and live in the words of this book and the incredible story of Tara Westover growing up with extremist parents that were against all things "unnatural" and how she eventually earned a PhD from Cambridge.
If you are having a bad day or a pity party, read this book. If you are having financial problems, read this book. If you think you can't make it another day, read this book. If you think your job is miserable, read this book. Tara Westover grew up at the base of a mountain in Idaho within a Mormon family with six siblings and a mother and a father. However, she didn't receive much parenting as a child. Her father was a strict enforcer of Bible verses and her mother deferred all decisions to him. When her mother acted as a mid-wife, (because her father thought it would be a good idea) Tara became the assistant. When her father needed assistance with pulling and throwing scrap metal, Tara and her brothers were the employees.
I'm no wimp and certainly not afraid of work, but the extreme and and incredulously unsafe practices of this family living "off the grid" kept me predicting someone's certain death. From car wrecks with brain injuries to motorcycle accidents to second degree burns, all ailments were treated with tonics, poultices and herbal oils. Anything associated with the government was off limits, which meant, school, doctors, hospitals, laws, taxes, Pell grants, etc...When her father hears of the nearby Ruby Ridge siege, Tara and her brothers have to prepare, and sleep with a "head for the hills"bag.
When one of her older brothers defies his upbringing and goes on to college, he encourages Tara to do the same. At the age of 16, she takes the ACT test, fails, then teachers herself trigonometry to earn an acceptable score to attend BYU. At 17, she becomes a freshman at BYU, alienates her classmates and roommates with her "strange clothes" and "strict beliefs." Thankfully, a professor takes interest in her, senses her determination and helps Tara adjust as well as find ways to further her education.
This book probably could have been twice its length, but Westover has chosen just the right events and woven them seamlessly into a page turner quest for a different life. Through her experiences, she takes the reader with her as she revisits her life through physical abuse, poverty, survivalist and religious beliefs, her exclusion by some of her family and her determination to overcome it all.
Educated should be a must-read for teachers, students and anyone. Gillian Anderson is right, "You can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance and facing your fears." Tara Westover's story is this quote in living color.
#netgalley #Educated