This was an absolutely fascinating read! I don't normally read non-fiction but sometimes real life can be stranger than fiction, and that's the case with this book. Raised by Mormon survivalists, Tara Westover never spent a day in school until her first day of university. This was an amazing achievement for a girl who had to learn everything on her own. The story of her life is of horrendous abuse, and even so she loved her parents and wanted to believe the best of her family. I felt many different emotions while reading this book and I have nothing but the greatest respect for Tara Westover and her achievements in life; not only her academic achievements but also her emotional ones.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House through Netgalley for a review copy.

Wow, the things Tara went through were heartbreaking. I can't believe she grew up that way. This book dealt with mental health, abuse, family drama etc. I thought her determination to keep learning more even though she went most of her childhood barely learning anything is inspiring. She had a lot of will power to keep going despite her struggles. I received this copy from netgalley for a honest review. Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing.

Educated was an interesting read! Educated provided insight into an unhealthy family dynamic. The memoir follows Tara through her life and shows her struggles trying to go somewhere outside of the small town. Tara faces several challenges.

There were some transitions that felt awkward in the book. Overall, the story was interesting. I believe the book shows the importance of listening to survivors. As well as the dangers of isolation. Although, face to face school isn't always the right choice for every child, school has the opportunity to try and be a safeguard for children. Those that work with children are often the ones that report abuse. Families that isolate provide dangers in a power dynamic that can be seen in this book. Tara believes certain things to be true because that's the only way she knows. As Tara becomes more educated, she realizes the world is a lot bigger than the mountain and I think that's an important take away from the book.

This memoir was, in my opinion, overblown to the point of being not believable. I could not relate with a single person in the book, and I frankly did not even like any of them. While I initially felt bad for Tara, she seemed self-righteous by the end. I was not as big of a fan as others.

This book ended up keeping my attention the entire time. I felt as if I grew tired of Tara's struggles around the same time she did in her book, so the flow was really good.

Having read this book long after the buzz and when most people had read it for their book clubs, I had heard both good and bad opinions.

Mine is firmly in the good, but it is not one of the best books I've ever read.

I really enjoyed this book, but I had to stop and remind myself sometimes that it is real. It’s hard to imagine growing up in this kind of environment!

A gripping memoir comparable to The Glass Castle. A remarkable story about a girl growing up with survivalist parents in the backwoods of Idaho, not setting foot in school until age 17, yet manages to get a PhD from Cambridge a decade later. The layers of abuse and neglect that she suffered would have crushed most people, but Tara is not your average individual. An inspiring yet humble memoir. Every bit as good as the well-deserved hype.

This is a brutal account of a young woman who is forced to let go of her former self in order to survive. Funnily enough, Tara Westover was born into a family of radical Mormons who had been getting ready to survive “the Apocalypse” and it turns out that her only chance at living her life is getting away from them.

I would have never thought that I would be so immersed in a memoir where religious fundamentalism is at the core of a very strict, violent and almost deadly upbringing. The portrait Westover paints not only of her dysfunctional family but also of her community is distressing to the point of disbelief. How can a rational, healthy person feel the need to belong to a family where physical and psychological abuse is condoned, even encouraged, by her own parents? How can a mother partake in the obsession of her husband to put in continuous danger the lives of her children relying on the will and the grace of God?
Westover’s chronicle of her childhood is full of terrifying statements. The extreme conservationism of her father’s observations about the role of women, the degradation she suffers in the hands of her own brother, her mother’s apparent lack of empathy.
As I kept reading I thought it couldn’t get any worse, and yet it did. Illness and severe accidents were treated at home with oils and herbs because their father didn’t believe in medicine nor in public education. So Tara Westover managed to self-educate herself in order to be admitted to college, and later to graduate in no other place than Cambridge.

Tara’s courage is admirable. Not only for what she managed to accomplish in spite of her adverse upbringing, but also because she dares to talk about her childhood knowing she’ll be banned for good from her family. There is no rage or vindication in her words, mostly undeserved guilt and sorrow for the loss of innocence. Getting an education should imply growing in awareness of the world that surrounds us, it should arise countless questions that challenge the way we understand ourselves, it should broaden one’s mind. It shouldn’t mean losing a part of yourself or renouncing to one’s past, as it happened to Tara, it should bring collective enrichment and joy to you and those who love you.

As the memoir run its course and was nearing its end, a tremendous sadness engulfed me. I was holding my two months old baby daughter in my arms and I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that a mother could deny her own daughter because she had expanded her worldview. Tara never imposed on her parents, she was always respectful, even reverent of their beliefs despite the trauma they inflicted on her, and it is unbelievable to me that she was so cruelly banished from everything she had loved as a child.
Fundamentalism of any kind is our worst enemy and it’s painful to see how present and persistent it still is in the 21st century. Persons like Tara help us to remember how lucky we are to be born where we were, and to never take anything for granted. And to cherish education, which is and always will be our wings to fly up to higher perspectives.
And what a vista… Scary, but so so necessary. A book I would recommend to anybody who thinks otherwise.

[CW: misogyny, gaslighting, violence, psychological & physical & spiritual abuse, child abuse, use of N-word by family member]

I have to thank Westover for writing this memoir. It must have taken her a lot of courage to relive everything and share her own life story with the world.

"Educated" is an unsettling read. It is difficult to believe that everything in the book had happened within the past 35 years. If there were a single antagonist to Westover's protagonist, it would have been her father. But she wrote this memoir candidly and without blame, so the book was not an aggressive rant, but rather like a novel with a reliable narrator. The sense of rote was also probably because getting emotional would have made the writing process unbearable. She did not fault anyone or religion nor get angry, but is accepting of her past and moves on.

To a small degree, I understand how the worldview of family greatly impacts your own when you stay ignorant of the world. I can only imagine how confused she must have felt growing up and entering higher education. But since then, Westover had found her way and is an unwavering force. Her writings delivered dramatic presentations and life so far has been both heartbreaking and liberating.

All Westovers are technically unkillable even after the accidents of Tyler driving overnight, Luke catching fire, and the many many more that followed. These miraculous recoveries were very much like fiction, but I guess they were lucky.

I love Tara’s older brother Tyler. As a teen, he read a lot and bought math textbooks to study calculus. I love that he and Tara are always close. With the family’s distrust of public education, it took Tyler immense resolution to break free and I silently thank him for that.

Though her family’s memories didn't agree on many past events, it did not take anything away from the memoir. I think their childhood pain had them shut down, and that had resulted in the memory gaps. There were obvious attempts of lying to self throughout Westover’s life as well.

"Educated" is intense and at times horrifying. I would have called it a thrilling read if it weren’t Westover’s real life. Even if you do not believe that the events taken place over the course of Westover's youth were true, I still encourage you to read "Educated" because it makes you rethink your own life. Read it as fiction, and it is just as good; read it as non-fiction, and it is life-changing.

This haunting novel definitely lives up to the hype. It's a thought-provoking, at times disturbing and other times hopeful, debut that showed me a world I hardly knew existed and made me realise how strong our family bonds and worldviews are. Highly recommended for a gripping novel that will stay with you long after you finish.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book was harrowing and shattered my perception of life and how people live. I was taken aback by this novel many times. It follows a young girl as she grows up in a dysfunctional family and slowly realizes how different her life is than everyone else’s. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a life changing read.

I saw Tara Westover on Ellen and wanted to read her book, Educated, since.

This is an incredible memoir of her life growing up in Idaho, on a mountain in a survivalist family. The youngest of seven children. Her family is Mormon, but her dad has his own blend of religion and conspiracy that he rules with. For instance, Western Medicine is the devils work and they all get hurt a lot!!!

Tara never goes to school until entering college. The “home schooling” has mainly trickled out of her home by the time she is ready to learn.

This is a coming of age novel. I was riveted to learn what would happen to her next, whether it was positive or the unbearable negatives. What grabbed my interest throughout they memoir is how creative her entire family is. To live in the fashion that they do, it takes a lot of skill and talent. She and I are not to far apart in age so it was interesting as a reader to compare world events like Y2K and 9/11.

Tara is a very inspiring person and her writing is impeccable. I was very drawn to her first exposure to education, finding her self and reconciling with herself. Also, how she finds a way to recover from past trauma.

Highly recommend this can’t put down memoir.

Trigger warning: Domestic and Emotional Abuse.

#Educated #NetGalley #memoir #nonfiction

One of the best books I’ve read in years and I read a lot. Have the arc, finished copy & UK version in my collection. Author tells a beautiful story of her life which was difficult without bashing her family. No matter what she experienced she always loved her family. Love love love this book and author! Can’t wait for her next book!!

I tried to get into this book but I just could not do it. I rarely DNF a book but lately I have been a little more ruthless when I read.

This memoir follows Tara Westover's remarkable childhood growing up in a Mormon survivalist family that renounced education as a form of indoctrination from the devil, and the "medical establishment" as poisonous and against God's will. Against this backdrop, we follow Tara through her childhood, adolescence and adulthood grappling with the ideas her family holds and her harrowing experiences within that environment as she gives herself enough education to make it to college, then to a PhD from Cambridge University.

Her style was propulsive, yet lyrical in a lot of places and made this book a quick, easy read, despite the heaviness of the subject. I became completely absorbed in my story and could picture her house, the junk yard she worked in, the mountain she lived on, her family members -- all were rendered in wonderful clarity that her story came off sharp and genuine. I was impressed by the fluidity of the memoir, how it moved easily from one part of her life to the next without any glaring gaps that left me wondering if there was anything missing.

Simply put, her journey to education was amazing and inspiring, but the book wasn't meant to be a hero's story of overcoming the odds to reach a goal the hero never thought possible. Rather than focusing on her growth and how her education propelled her onward and upward, this book is an emotional recounting of the impact her education had on her relationship with her family, how her newfound diversity of knowledge gave her insight into the often perverse nature of her family dynamics, which, in turn, eroded her relationship with them. You can tell through her writing how hard this was for her, and the conflict she illustrates between sticking to your beliefs and the person you've gone to great lengths to become, and preserving your relationship with your family is palpable and relatable -- to some degree -- to all of us.

My only (very mild) critique of this book is that it breezes over her education and her research in favor of recounting events with her family, which is understandable. I just wish I could have seen more of how her philosophical research affected her on a personal level, in turn affecting how she handled her family. There is a bit of that in the book already, but a more illuminating look at her time in higher education may have been interesting to read about.

Overall, this is a very readable, very compelling account of Ms. Westover's life journey and one that I think people will continue to read for decades. I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys memoirs, or has interest in learning more about what some may consider "radical" religious beliefs.

Educated was a compelling and easy read. I quite enjoyed hearing about Tara Westover's life and her journey to achieve her academic dreams. I'm aware there is a lot of controversy about some of the information on her family, but I did not find it to be such an extreme story. Across the United States, some families choose to prioritize religion or tradition over education and culture. I think that this is one of those books that will be interpreted differently by each reader depending on their own life experiences. For me, I found comfort in the obstacles she was able to overcome to receive an education. As a first-generation student myself, I could relate to some of her feelings of not fitting into the academic world.


*I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This memoir has received rave reviews and I see why. Such a powerful story and one I will definitely recomend

I've seen this book everywhere and many people said 'it's one of a powerful book" that ever published in 2020. I completely agree with that statement. Reading this book made me thinking, how important is an education for every human being, even for a small scale. Reading this book made me thinking, family is important. Reading this book made me thinking mental health is important.

The writing style in this book is very captivating and remarkable, and powerful. The author's horrible childhood is really hard to imagine that this is happening for real. Starting from a poor education life ended with PhD title, I still can not imagine how she's able to get through it, with her poor background life, no parents supported her, disowned by her own families, in the end she managed to get her highest education level for her life.

The heavy part of this book is of course about her own family. The father, the mother, the siblings, each with their "unbelievable' story that I've ever read and happened in a family. Her parents were successfully brainwashed their own children and other families member for such a long time, until they obviously believe that the world outside is full with hateful and cruel things. The positive lesson that I get from this book, she never lose her faith at all. she believe that if she keep educated herself, her life will changed. I admire her strength and patience (she always love her parents) despite with what happened in her life, specially related with Shawn, her brother.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ebook in exchange with an honest review.

5 stars

If you want to read a book that will stay with you than read Educated. If you want to read a book about someone overcoming a horrible childhood and still becomes an amazing adult read Educated. This book is one that will stay with me for a long time. I am impressed with Tara's tenacity to overcome a poor education and still go to college. I know that her parents loved her and her siblings in their own way. I realize this, but it still is amazing the poverty and hardships as a child to where she is today.

Thoughtful and inspiring. Shows how to overcome overwhelming odds. The author is a true heroine. Highly recommend this title.