Title: Educated
Author: Tara Westover
Genre: nonfiction, memoir, reflective
Pages: 368
Publication Date: Feb 8, 2022
StoryGraph* Moods: emotional, reflective, inspiring
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: The cover caught my attention while wondering through a bookshop.
Other Books by this author: none as of this writing
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.
Description: Imagine being seventeen and never having stepped foot into a classroom. Or a doctor’s office. That was Tara Westover’s life. Her parents were survivalists living in the mountains of Idaho, and Tara went to bed every night with her “head-for-the-hills” bag at ready. When her brother turned violent against her, there was no one to protect her.
Tara, in secret, began to educate herself – learning enough to gain entrance to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge took her literally and metaphorically all over the world. She ended up earning a PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2019, she was the Rosenthal Writer in Residence at Harvard. A far cry from home. Perhaps too far. “You can’t go home again” is a well-known saying for a reason.
Why I recommend this book: Westover’s memoir is a testament to how an education can truly change someone’s life. I think it’s best said by Vogue (yeah, not who I expected ever to quote, either): “Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”
At its heart, Educated is a coming of age story – unlike any I’ve ever read before. But also, from the view of an educator, one I think everyone can gain something from.
“We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell.”
“An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.”
~ Tara Westover, Educated
Ami Maxine 