This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy from my links, at no additional cost to you, I get a small commission so I can buy even more books to review! See full disclosure here.
Educated by Tara Westover
Genre: Non-Fiction | My Review Rating: ♥♥♥
Pages 335 | Published: February 20, 2018 by Random House
Book Jacket Synopsis
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected.
She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn’t exist.
As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d travelled too far. If there was still a way home.
EDUCATED is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has, from her singular experience, crafted a universal coming-of-age story, one that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers – the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
Book Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Review & Thoughts
Review Notes: I’ll be honest here, this came close to being a DNF [did not finish] but I’d already gotten through half the book and generally once I’ve gotten past 20-25% of the book I prefer to keep going.
Educated had some interesting and seriously insane situations but I didn’t connect with the story or the author’s voice or perspective. When I read a non-fiction memoir I enjoy learning something new or gaining positive perspective. I failed to glean either of these things from reading this book.
In a Nutshell: This book has received a lot of great feedback over the past few years but it left me disappointed and did not live up to the hype. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Book Format & Source: Audiobook borrowed from the free Libby app
About Tara Westover
From the Author’s Amazon Bio: Tara Westover is an American author living in the UK. Born in Idaho to a father opposed to public education, she never attended school. She spent her days working in her father’s junkyard or stewing herbs for her mother, a self-taught herbalist and midwife. She was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom, and after that first taste, she pursued learning for a decade. She graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2008 and was subsequently awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She earned an MPhil from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009, and in 2010 was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She returned to Cambridge, where she was awarded a PhD in history in 2014.
You May Also Enjoy
Leave a Reply