Review: Educated by Tara Westover
by The Borrowers Book Group Kesgrave Library
The Borrowers Book Group at Kesgrave Library share their thoughts on Educated by Tara Westover.
About Educated:
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.
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Book group review:
This is a fascinating memoir, a real page-turner, passionately written without self-pity or judgement, which prompted a robust discussion with our bookgroup and was enjoyed by all.
The writer grew up in an isolated rural community in Idaho. She was the youngest of seven growing up in a highly dysfunctional family dominated by an obsessive and controlling father whose strong Mormon beliefs in the Judgement of God and fear of persecution by the government denied the writer access to education and health services.
Each chapter reads almost like a story in itself as Westover vividly describes many startling and shocking memories, as well as some which cause the reader to laugh out loud. In reflecting back on what she felt, Westover is honest from her point of view. Only as an adult torn between family loyalty and finding herself does she begin to realise that what appeared ‘normal’ at the time hid abusive relationships.
The book prompted us to question how truth can be distorted, memory selective and when growing up, one sees only what one wants to see.
Recommendation: A real page-turner, a fascinating memoir of her truth, which prompted a wide-ranging discussion.
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