Laura’s Rating: 4/5 Stars
My friend Alie picked this book for our book club and while I wasn’t initially excited to read Educated, I ended up really enjoying it.
The Analysis:
Tara Westover was born to a survivalist Morman family in rural Idaho. She was born at home, not even receiving a birth certificate until the age of 9. Her parents and father in particular had a rigid religious ideology and was suspicious of modern medicine, public schools, and the federal government. Tara was initially homeschooled by her mother and some of her siblings even attended school, but by the time Tara was a preteen, her education had ceased and she spent her time helping her father and brothers in the family scrapyard. After several life threatening accidents and injuries to her family, as well as physical and verbal abuse by her brother, Tara decides to go to college at BYU. What follows is her journey towards becoming traditionally educated and finding her place in the world.
This story was fascinating and sucked me in right off the bat. Tara’s story is unusual and likely an unfamiliar way of life for most readers. While some of her family’s practices were interesting, others were obviously quite harmful. Their lack of education, medicine, and proper safety protocols put the parents and children in danger on multiple occasions. Her father’s religious fanaticism caused him to discourage his children from striving for success in the outside world and he often applied harmful, sexist ideas to Tara and her mother and sister. Throughout the book, Tara examines her skewed perspective of life as she tries to decipher her own thoughts from her family’s.
My criticism would be that some events seem embellished or less than plausible, although I understand the need to edit for a narrative purpose. I also wish that the author had focused more on things like how she developed friendships and relationships rather than revisiting the same family issues over and over again. Overall, Educated was interesting and inspiring, and kept me glued to the pages from start to finish.
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