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Educated: A Memoir
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Educated: A Memoir
Unavailable
Educated: A Memoir
Audiobook12 hours

Educated: A Memoir

Written by Tara Westover

Narrated by Julia Whelan

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University

Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills" bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father's junkyard.

Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent.

When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics, philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled 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 from severing one’s closest ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story 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.

Editor's Note

Eye-opening memoir…

An inspirational story that provides shocking, poignant insight into the value of education from someone who never went to school until she was 17 years old. Tara Westover reveals how agonizing it is to try to bridge the gap between two vastly different personal identities.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 20, 2018
ISBN9780525528067
Unavailable
Educated: A Memoir
Author

Tara Westover

TARA WESTOVER was born in rural Idaho in 1986. She received a BA in history from Brigham Young University in 2008 and was subsequently awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She earned an MPhil in intellectual history and political thought from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2009, and in 2010 she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She returned to Cambridge, where she received a PhD in history in 2014. She lives in England.

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Reviews for Educated

Rating: 4.58956833637549 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

3,835 ratings391 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Educated was placed on my desk by a member that had borrowed it from another member. She asked if I had ever read it, when I replied I had not she began explaining how amazing the book was. A short time later another member passed by and raved about the book, followed by another and another. I decided I needed to see what all the "fuss" was about.Wow... picked up and finished in a day and a half. I took in Tara's story as one of survival and personal strength. Secluded away from much of every day world due to her having a fundamentalist Mormon father who believed the government was out to get them, she lived a life full of brainwashing and lacking any education, although she was home schooled for a short time, she did not obtain high school level education. Stories of abuse and uncertainty fill the pages, making you long for her to find her wings.Those wings are finally found when her older brother encourages becoming "Educated" and leaving the world she knows behind. Not without hurdles Tara struggles between the worlds, even later longing for a part of the world again.An insanely addictive read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Westover was born into a fundamentalist Mormon family that declined to give her formal schooling (or carry insurance; her father ripped the seatbelts out of their van rather than use them). Her father had her and her siblings do dangerous work in his scrapyard, work made more dangerous because of his contempt for safety equipment. Devastating accidents leave her older brother with head injuries that may well have worsened his abuse of her, even as her parents become more wrapped up in their own way of life (clearly aided by the lack of interest in Idaho in interfering with religiously motivated child harm). Westover eventually figures out that she wants an education and escapes to BYU, but her struggles are far from over. It’s beautifully written but heartwrenching.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A hard one to read. The author was the seventh child born into a survivalist family on Buck Mountain, Idaho. Dad made his living by "scapping" junkyard materials with his kids as free labor and occasionally taking a construction job. Mom became a midwife and herbalist. The older kids went to school for a few years, but then Dad starting distrusting everything, so they were kept home and treated with Mom' remedies, even for horrible wounds, such as being burned or cut with the slipshod tools. The author sat for the ACT tests - and passed enough to get a scholarship - just by reading books before the tests. She never had any formal, or even informal at home, schooling in anything except how to make her mother's herbal concoctions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I somehow managed to not listen to the hoopla over what this book was about and was surprised to find it really wasn't about home schooling in the broadest sense, but instead about the contagion of mental illness. I found it a very quick read (thank goodness! I couldn't have taken much more), but well worth it. The book is a good illustration of what Tolstoy meant when he wrote: "...every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not sure why I was not as impressed by this as many other readers. Reading about severely dysfunctional families is never an easy read and I'm sure it wasn't easy to write (or live through either). If I was more engaged with the narrator I think I would have had a better opinion. A better editor would have helped. The author seemed, in my opinion, to just gloss over certain issues such as her relationship to her religion. It felt more like a set of diary entries than a work where you really get to know someone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After 8+ months of waiting for this audiobook to come through from the library, I finally got my turn and got to listen to it! This was a really interesting memoir from Tara Westover recounting her growing up years, the struggles she overcame in being raised in a survivalist family in Idaho, and her introduction to education in her later years. I don't know how it reads on paper, but it felt like a fictional story in many ways though it's entirely nonfiction. If you haven't read it yet, it worth a read (or a listen)!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A jaw-dropping, surprising memoir by Tara Westover. It reminds me of The Glass Castle, but I didn't feel quite as connected to the main character. Definitely worth reading to hear how families can be isolated and others have no idea what is going on in their home. It's sad to think this goes on in our backyards.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was an exceptionally powerful book, even though the overriding theme surprised me a bit. As some reviewers have also noted, I was under the impression the book was largely about home schooling and the excruciating transitions that must occur when youngsters move into the mainstream. Westover’s remarkable work is much more about the ravages of mental illness, abuse and family dysfunction. Her harrowing story is told with remarkable skill – even if it leaves some readers exhausted. This is an impressive and riveting story of personal growth.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a disturbing look into a family ruled by undiagnosed mental illness, paranoia, religiosity and extremism. Tara Westover's transition into a person who not only functions, but excels, in the world is nothing short of miraculous and a tribute to her perseverance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I listened to this as an audio book, read by the author. Tara grew up in a conservative Mormon home in isolated northern Idaho. She shares her emergence out of her constrictive Mormon family, who didn't believe in public education, to her receiving her advanced degrees from Harvard. Insightful and vulnerable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This has been on my list of books to be read for too long and I finally had it in my hands....and could NOT put it down! Tara Westover is....amazing. How she made it to where she is becomes all the more incredible given her descriptions of her life. How? How....did she manage? Yes, it had to be strength of character as well as the fact that somehow, some very influential people stepped into her life. It was truly an "education" for me to read her memoir.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Remarkable!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this for my bookclub, and was keenly interested in the entire topic; the book did not disappoint. Tara Westover's writing is particularly literate for someone who came to formal learning late - or maybe because of it. Her use of words and description is powerful, mesmerising, and flows so well it is easy to visualise what she imparts - the people and the place.For the first 100 pages I considered this just a novel about people living a different lifestyle. Having had a close friend who was a Mormon and believed in the Holistic way of life and had a distrust of medicines and doctors, and some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Big Pharma, it was not new to me. I wondered at the descriptions of abuse in the blurb and whether it had just been hype, but then I realised Tara was simply setting the scene; familiarising the reader with the characters (her family) and the culture, both religious and in terms of her father's mental disposition. Then the story started to developed as we were introduced to her brother Shawn and other elements of her life that were not quite as easy: the family accidents, the physical abuse, the gaslighting and trying to break out both physically and mentally.There were strange paradoxes and plenty of inconsistency - even hypocrisy - in how she was raised and the people surrounding her. For someone who wasn't registered at birth, which is officially illegal (I thought), I was surprised at the lack of repercussions when they called to get her a birth certificate years on. There was no inquiry, or authorities querying this. And it seemed quite incredible how easy it was for her to apply and get into a local university just by passing a few tests after studying four basic subjects. It made me wonder why we can't all do this! But maybe the exact detail and difficulty were underplayed. However, when it came to getting into Cambridge, I could only imagine how unique her view point in what she wrote must have been; how differently she saw things, that it made such an impact. If anything it shows that those of us boxed and labelled by the system early on are also limited by it - although I wouldn't wish Tara's journey there on anyone.As someone who has suffered domestic abuse as a child, quite a lot of this novel was quite difficult in that I felt the dread and the tension before reading certain scenes - any time she was due to see Shawn or he would be in the room I felt this. It made me connect much more closely and consider that Tara sharing her story was something extremely brave to do, especially considering the abusers are still alive. Some may think that was wrong of her to do, but I don't. I think that there has to come a time where you speak out, not just for yourself but for others who have been through the same, or are still stuck in it and unable to find a way out. Too many people make these topics taboo and find it uncomfortable to talk about, but what they don't realise is that this allows a lot of these sorts of abuse to continue. I applaud Tara for doing this and for doing it so effectively, and eloquently.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tara Westover is raised in a family in Idaho with a father who is a survivalist and a strict Mormon. It would be an understatement to describe her home life as dysfunctional. The six children are homeschooled by a mother who is distracted and subservient to her husband’s extreme views. His paranoid distrust of any form of government including educators, medical and safety experts constantly puts his family in danger. Several incidents where family members are severely injured in his junk yard business are viewed as God’s will. Physical and emotional abuse are rampantTara and her brothers Tyler and Richard are the only children who are able to break away and obtain significant educational qualifications which enable them to peer closely at their father’s myopic view of the world and their mother’s complacency in accepting his behaviour. Tara obtains graduate degrees from Brigham Young university, Cambridge and Harvard. This is an interesting memoir as the family is so extreme, intolerant, God fearing and backward. The final part of the book deals with her break from her family. Her father wants to exorcise Satan from her but she is able refuse his “salvation”Interesting story, well told but I don’t think it deserves the acclaim that it is receiving.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was intense - especially during the week of the Kavanaugh testimony. It reminded me of the Glass Castle but with more violence. A young woman finds the strength somehow to pull herself out from under the oppressive physical and psychological violence of her family with clear descriptions and understandings of the vagaries of memory.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Astounding and disturbing story of totally dysfunctional family living off the grid. So much cruelty and violence and abuse, yet she kept coming back to try to reconcile with her family. What about any of this seemed normal to her? But she had no context at all for what "normal" might look like. Became very tedious and irritating in teh final few chapters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a remarkable tale of growth and self determination as a process more than a destination. I noticed that what to me were remarkable instances of help offered to Dr. Westover were hardly remarked upon by her. Also, while the sense of place is strong when reading of those sections, it is her acceptance by her parents that is always the issue, not her exile from the place she so obviously loved down to her bones.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found this a difficult book to grapple with. At first it was fascinating to delve into the insane lifestyle of Westover's fundamentalist parents, but the book just kept getting darker and darker as one brother's twisted and violent tendencies started to eclipse everything else.Then the author, interested in historiography in her studies -- how the perspective of the one writing the history shapes the history -- undercuts the credibility of her own history in numerous ways: using pseudonyms for her family members while using her own real name (What's the point of that? Did her education not include Google?), giving repeated credence to her brother and father's gaslighting, showing repeated willingness to change her perception of reality for acceptance, questioning the validity of memory itself, and, finally, putting asterisks next to "quoted" emails that she admits to just making up with the excuse that "The meaning has been preserved." The muddle she creates dulls my admiration for her achievement in surviving and escaping her family.I may have set my expectations too high, hoping this would be another The Glass Castle.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Much of Westover's memoir angered me, and as I turned the pages I was often surprised by where I lodged that anger and upon whom I didn't. (Who is at fault here? Who to blame for this madness? The mom? The dad? The grandparents? Joseph Smith?) For me this nearly overrode Dr. Westover's achievements. It's the abuse, endangerment, and neglect that got under my skin, not the academic pursuits and brass rings, impressive as they would be under any circumstances and extraordinary under hers.Midway through the book Radiohead's "2+2=5" arose of its own accord in my mind as the musical mental accompaniment to the book.Are you such a dreamerTo put the world to rightsI'll stay home foreverWhere two and two always makes a fiveI'll lay down the tracksSandbag and hideJanuary has April showersAnd two and two always makes a fiveIt's the devil's way nowThere is no way outYou can scream and shoutIt is too late nowBecause you're not therePayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionYeah I feel it, I needed attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionYeah I need it, I needed attentionI needed attentionI needed attentionI needed attentionYeah I love it, the attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionSoon ahI try to sing alongBut the music's all wrong'Cause I'm not'Cause I'm notI'll swallow up flies?Back and hideBut I'm notOh hail to the thiefOh hail to the thiefBut I'm notBut I'm notBut I'm notBut I'm notDon't question my authority or put me in the box'Cause I'm not'Cause I'm notOh go up to the king, and the sky is falling inBut it's notBut it's notMaybe notMaybe notMaybe not--Radiohead
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a fascinating look at an alternative lifestyle that seems so unimaginable. Tara Westover writes of her life growing up in Idaho with a survivalist family. Her father didn't believe in public education, or government interference, or public health care. It is amazing Tara and her siblings survived their own childhood, though it could be debated how well they survived. Through sheer willpower and perseverance, Westover put herself through college, eventually obtaining a PhD. Her story recounts her childhood and what it took to change her situation: mentally, physically, and spirituality. It was a captivating read that I had trouble putting down.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tara Westover (b.1986) grew up in a survivalist mormon household in Idaho. She did not go to school as a child because her father was opposed to much of the outside society, even most other mormons. The family also did not go to doctors or hospitals or used other government services, relying instead on the mother's herbs and homeopathic medicine. Tara's father and eldest brother have mental health issues and are increasingly abusive. At 17, Tara manages to attend university, which, with many ups and downs, she greatly benefits from and likes. Mental problems are the real problem in the family, but they are allowed to be som because of their religiosity, which insulates them and prevents them from getting help, either from professionals or even the mormon society. The book is so perfectly dramatic and well told that it is sometimes too good to be true. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I would compare this to Glass Castle. Both books had large families, the fathers in both books were not especially good fathers. I felt the writing in the Glass Castle was more engaging. this was Tara Westover's first book, but I enjoyed Jeannette Walls book more.This book was more interesting to me once I was passed her childhood. I kept waiting for someone to die. The father's in both books made me angry.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rated: B+Fascinating story of a women's life struggle to go and grow beyond her tyrannical upbringing. Without any formal education while living in a near isolated home life, she enter college. She ultimately earns her Ph.D. from Cambridge. I read her memoir shortly after reading Hillbilly Elegy. The two lives have similarities regarding the human spirit will to overcome social norms with their environments. So much of who we are is shape in our youthful developmental years. It's amazing when someone can break free when those years have been abusive to heart, mind, spirit and body.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm developing a bit of a split personality over this book. The sprite on one shoulder (let's call her Good Read Sprite) thinks it's very good - a well written page-turner and an interesting insight into life in a rural American survivalist family, which hitherto I didn't know much about. But the other sprite (let's call her Cynical Sprite), feels a little played, and having chewed over this for a day it's Cynical Sprite's thoughts that are winning through.I'm not questioning whether the events that Westover writes about occurred or not - I expect that they did, and that there were many traumatic instances in her childhood and adolescence - but when I compare it to other Misery Lit titles this book feels very self-pitiful, and in some areas I suspected that Tara's viewpoint only uncovered part of the story, which supported how she wanted to position the overall narrative of her life. For instance, on education she wanted the reader to believe that she had had next to nothing in the way of education before she sat her college exam. It seemed incredible that she could reach such stellar heights against such insurmountable odds, but then we read that 6 out of the 7 children went on to some level of higher education. When I read further around the subject, I discovered that both her mum and dad attended at least a year of university classes each, which Westover failed to mention anywhere in this book. Also, one brother (who I recollect she was close to in the book) has since questioned the accuracy and one-sidedness of a number of her recollections. He admits that their parents were extremists and that things happened to hurt Tara, but he points out that he has a different interpretation of some things that happened within the family. Tara would like us to believe that this is because her family are all indoctrinated by the family's very strict faith and controlling nature of her bi-polar father - yes, that's entirely possible, but equally her can-do-no-wrong self-positioning in this book made me begin to lose my trust in her as a narrator of her story at times, and to wonder what the full story was.Westover also positions her mother's hugely successful business as a random happenstance that happened to some poor, uneducated hillbillies on the back of treating her father's injuries. That felt very glossed over, and again by sowing that doubt in my mind I further questioned how fully accurate the rest of the memoir was.In all, I'm very conflicted by this book. I don't feel that we ever got to meet the real Tara - we meet the version of Tara and her story that Westover wanted to portray, and it didn't feel wholly authentic to me. Clearly I'm in the minority on this as I know the world and his wife loved this; I did really enjoy reading it, but I'm not sure I overly liked Tara in the end, which is very surprising as I usually root straight away for the underdog in this type of book. Her story was fascinating, but I think I would have sympathised with her difficult family upbringing much more if she'd let a bit more of the true Tara through.3.5 stars - a really good read, but I was left with too many niggling questions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I devoured this book. The story is incredible, but it's really how she tells it that makes it special. The theme of memory is strong here: how it can shape our lives, how it can shape how we see ourselves and others. There are other themes, of course, such as the role of faith and the role of education. Fascinating!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Engrossing, horrific memoir of the daughter of a seriously warped social outsider of the Mormon faith, and his (brainwashed?) wife. Convinced the authorities are all evil and a danger, her father supports his kids by running a seriously lethal junkyard. They are 'homeschooled', any accidents (and there's plenty of major ones) fixed at home with mother's herbal potions.The author manages to flee the demands that she risk her life in the scrap yard; and the murderous assaults from an unhinged brother. Despite the vasts holes in her education, she somehow makes it to the top universities; but the title of the book refers not to her PhD, but to the hardly-won accomplishment of being able to break away mentally from her younger, credulous self, to be entirely out of her (apparently mentally-ill) father's power.Westover writes well, delving into her psyche, her reluctance to give up on the family, her continuing warm relationship with some siblings.I was confused by her mother - starting off as a bit of a home-herbalist failure, boiling up plants in the unhygenic family home, she suddenly has a thriving company, numbers of employees, (you can buy the Westover oils on Amazon!) We never see how this happens; this leads the reader to perhaps question some of the accounts of this woman. Portrayed as usually operating under her husband's direction, we start to ask questions as to how a successful business owner - ultimately earning the family wealth- is so blinded and held back by the rantings of a madman (and a mad son)...But highly readable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There must have been something special in the DNA of Tara Westover that set her apart from her siblings. In her memoir, Westover, details how they all were mentally and physically abused by their father, a man who perverted the teachings of the Mormon church and feared government interference. While most succumbed to their fathers strong and somewhat twisted beliefs, Tara had a deep desire to learn and despite not having even a grade school education, self taught her way into Brigham Young University.An inspiring read and a document as to how a formal education frees the mind from irrational thought that tends to be ingrained in a person's psyche when alternative thoughts are not presented to challenge it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tara was raised on an isolated farm in Idaho. There she was homeschooled on occasion by her mother. Her dad has issues and was working on living off the grid. He supported the family by scrapping and building contracting. Her mother was a midwife and essential oil/homeopathy healer. When Tara was 16 she decided she wanted to go to school. She was able to go to BYU but there were many gaps in her education that needed to be filled. She was fortunate that in her second-year roommates she found that help. She then went on to Cambridge and Harvard.This book was a fascinating read, like watching a train wreak--you know you should not look but it is impossible to look away. How Tara and her siblings were raised was horrific. That none died is a miracle. I am glad that Tara and some of her siblings got out and found lives in the outside world. Their dad had mental illness and their mother had a traumatic brain injury. They should not have been raising these kids. I loved when her brother Tyler spoke up in support of Tara when she would not come back into the fold and her parents spread lies about her. I am glad that Tara, Tyler, Richard, and Tony supported each other. They were the ones who got out. The others who stayed had issues and I am afraid some of the problems will continue to go down to the next generations.I am glad I read this but it is tough as she talks about what they went through physically and mentally. I applaud them. I congratulate them on making it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I do not love memoirs but this book was excellent. I hope other readers see this as a book about growing up with mental illness rather than a diatribe about the Mormon church. I am not saying religion did not play a role but the family was devistated by mental illness
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Jeez. Gee whiz. Oh man. That was a harrowing. What an insanely wild ride. Full review to come.