Love, love, love this memoir. An honest and page-turning account of what can happen when knowledge supersedes blind faith, including breaking abusive and manipulative family ties, standing up for the truth, and creating a fulfilling life outside the bonds of her nuclear family.

Wow. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book. Reminiscent of the Glass Castle, this is a page turner. How the author survived her hell and came out alive is the true miracle. Definitely recommending this one!

This book took me a little while to really get into, despite it being incredibly interesting. This is an account of the author's life within an extremely cloistered and religious household. Although the family is Mormon and live in a mostly Mormon community, due to the father's paranoia and delusions of government conspiracies, the family is more separated from the outside world than most of the community and the youngest 4 children do not even attend public school. As a teenager the author, Tara, decides that she wants an education so she studies for the college entrance exams until she can pass and applies for school. When she makes it to college she realizes how very cut off from the outside world she really has been. She doesn't know how school and studying really work and she is unfamiliar with the most basic historical events (which leads to some embarrassment). Her personal grooming and other habits set her apart from the other students and leads to some conflict with roommates until she learns society's general expectations for keeping up common spaces & hygiene. In spite of all of the extra challenges Tara faces in navigating a totally foreign world, she thrives on school and is soon encouraged to pursue further education overseas and eventually a masters degree. The more educated she becomes, the more she is removed from her family and their now over-the-top dogma. Family conflicts ensue and Tara has to choose between her family and her independence. Very well written and engaging.

This book.

This book put a lot in perspective for me. I was not educated at home, nor did I grow up in a religious background. I have judged those that come from a place that Westover did, not understanding how they grew up, and why they feel the way they do about things. How can they be so ignorant?

I know now. It's not ignorance. It's just not knowing. It's being uneducated in the ways of the world. In the ways things happened in history. It's trusting faith before everything, and using that faith to shape your world view.

I specifically quoted a passage while reading this book (paraphrased) that says "... the past shifted... the memory was immediately changed, blemished, turned to rot. The past became as ghastly as the present." That really struck me, because I, like Tara, have let my present color my past. An evil man was always evil, but that's not really true. It's how I feel now, knowing what I know now.


This book.
Has changed me.

Thank You, Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of this wonderful novel.
I cannot recommend this novel enough.

Absolutely stunning! Self-educated and reaching heights she'd never dreamed of, Tara Westover still has to come to grips with the baggage her past has left her with. From the mental illness of her father, the damaged older broter, to the strict Mormon upbringing, all left a mark on Tara that isn't easily erased. Without ever sounding self-pitying or maudlin, Tara chronicles her upbringing and her metamorphosis into adulthood. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and and Random House Publishing for an advanced company in exchange for this review.

I'm intrigued (and sometimes disturbed) by people who live off the grid. Educated is the story of Tara's life. She and her family live in the mountains of Idaho and are survivalists. Tara never saw a doctor, never set foot in a school, and was isolated from society. Her father did not trust the government and was convinced that everything mainstream was propaganda. As a teenager, she decides to go to school and ends up teaching herself so she can pass the ACT and attend BYU. I squirmed when she raised her hand in class and did not know what the Holocaust was. I was amazed at her dedication to school and her ability to teach herself when she lacked formal schooling as a child. I found myself rooting for her as she started to realize that maybe parts of childhood beliefs were not correct. Her strength in learning about new things and questioning her own knowledge in order to grow was powerful. It cost her family connections but she also gained so much. What an eye opening read. It signifies the importance of education.

Ms Westover describes in her book her early childhood on Buck Pearl Mountain. Her father suffering from bi polar and an indifferent mother. She could not attend school, because "that is where the government brainwashes people", she had no birth certificate until she was 14, and she took the ACT test to get into college by studying any chance that she got. Yet when she started to get accolades for her education, her father tried pulling her back into dysfunction. She resisted.
The authors description and life journey is one to be sipped slowly. Yet, I would gulp large portions of this book in one sitting. I found her story compelling, strange, and yet triumphant. I could relate to her story and her heartbreak of losing her family over her decision to better herself. Overall this is a great book and a story that needed to be told.