Educated Book Review: A Memoir by Tara Westover

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Educated Book Review

Today we’re going to be discussing the book Educated by Tara Westover.

I had heard of this book once before. One of my friends on Instagram had posted that they were reading it. I remembered that as I was scrolling through my libby account and looking for a new audiobook to listen to. I was able to check out Educated right away, and decided to give it a chance.

Tara Westover’s memoir is the incredibly inspiring story of a young woman who was born to a survivalist family in rural Idaho who eventually became a student at Cambridge University and received her doctorate’s degree. Her story is inspiring, but also incredibly difficult to read at times.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the beginning and I’ll tell you what Educated is all about.

What is Educated by Tara Westover About?

After just a few pages, I learned quickly that Tara’s memoir is her story of growing up in a fundamentalist mormon family in the mountains of Idaho. From a young age, she was taught that her father’s beliefs were the backbone of everyone’s beliefs system. Her father’s belief systems were ingrained in her and she grew up thinking just like him. His extreme fear of the government led to many problems for the family. An example is how when Tara was born, her birth was complete undocumented. She didn’t have a birth certificate until she was 9 years old.

Tara’s story is about being a young girl with limited exposure to the outside world because of how her parents chose to raise her (and her six older siblings). Her father is the head of their survivalist family and regularly lectures the family about the subjects of modesty, self sufficiency, the illuminati, and whatever else he felt like teaching them that day.

Is Everyone Happy With that Life?

Some of her family members are content with their simple lifestyle, while others dream of leaving the mountain and looking for more. Tara’s father is the head of the family and as a devout Morman believes in traditional gender roles in the household. Tara grew up believing that her future was as a mother and homemaker. But as she progressed into her teen years and began to grow curious about the outside world, realized that there was more going on.

In her father’s household, Tara learned about things like preparing for the end of the world and how to store food and protect oneself. Her mother taught her how to make medicine with herbs. Her father and older brothers taught her how to work alongside them in their father’s junkyard.

But when it came to getting a real education, that was up to Tara. She was completely on her own. Tara Westover’s story is complicated and traumatic but she persevered through it all.

What are the Recurring Themes in this story?

From a young age, Tara is taught that the government is to be avoided. Therefore, she and a couple of her siblings do not have birth certificates. This poses a great challenge for many activities, the most importantly being travel.

Any medical establishment like hospitals are also to be avoided. Tara’s mother is a midwife and homeopath and can cure the family of all of their ailments. At least that’s what Tara’s father says. Throughout this book there are MANY instances where someone in Tara’s family is sick or injured and suffers because of lack of proper medical care. The family truly believes that all medical ailments can be cured by herbal remedies created by Westover’s mother.

Education systems are to be avoided. Tara’s Westover’s Father is very against public education because he doesn’t want his children to be taught socialism by the Illuminati. That means that if Tara wants to learn school subjects like trigonometry, she has to teach them to herself.

Tara’s Introduction to Public School

If you love to root for the underdog, I think you’ll find yourself incredibly invested in Tara’s story.

Her fist time in public school was later on in life. Inspired by an older brother who attended college, Tara decides to do the same. It’s a way out of the house, and also out of her father’s junkyard. It wasn’t an easy path for her to get there, and she questioned herself almost every step of the way.

It was Tara’s mother who told her she had to do it, when she began to lose faith in herself. That was a very sweet scene.

Public education systems of all kinds were off limits to her as a child. Westover’s father was disapproving of her choice, all along the way. I can’t even imagine how difficult that must have been

This Story Touches on Difficult Subjects

It feels weird to put a trigger warning on someone’s memoir since it’s their real life, and they went through it. So all I’ll say is if you’re squeamish when it comes to injuries, just be aware that there are some graphic depictions in this book. Tara’s parents’ beliefs about medical care lead to a lot of mishandled injuries and this story is filled with… infection, to say the least. There are many major medical crises in this story.

There are also scenes of physical abuse. The Westover siblings are fairly normal, with their sibling squabbles. But Tara endures physical and mental abuse at the hands of an older brother, and it may be hard to read for some readers to read about. So take care of yourself and be careful about full researching this book before you dive in.

What does Educated Mean?

As Tara grows up and discovers that there are other options for herself besides getting married and starting a family as a young woman, she begins to educate herself in more ways than one. I found Tara’s story of studying for the ACT really interesting because I can’t imagine having to teach yourself everything you need to know in order to be prepared for a standardized test. Her hard work and determination was really inspiring.

Her first time in the class room wasn’t easy. She grew up being lectured by her father about end of days. That wasn’t going to be useful to her in college. Her professors discussed things like The Holocaust and The Civil Rights movement. Her experience with roofing and manual labor wasn’t going to help her with intellectual history.

But while Tara worked hard to educate herself when it came to math and reading and grammar, she also (possibly unintentionally) worked to educate herself on life. A really intriguing part of this story was Tara’s rude awakening of going from living in an apartment at college to having to go home for school breaks.

Tara’s family expected her to go right back to working in her father’s junkyard. It’s really heartbreaking to read. There’s conflict because she’s trying to do what’s best for her, but also trying not to let her father down.

Let’s Wrap It Up

What did I really think of Educated? It was a fantastic read. I’m sure I would have enjoyed reading it on my kindle but as I mentioned, I listened to the Audiobook. It was narrated by Julia Whelan, who is one of my favorite audiobook narrators.

Tara’s story is really inspiring and the way that she crafted her memoir is really beautiful. She connects each chapter in an interesting way. I liked how she fact checked herself on somethings. It was interesting how she called people from her past to corraborate certain stories.

I would recommend you check this book out if you enjoy memoirs, such as The Glass Castle or Hillbilly Elegy. Tara’s story is unique and incredibly well written. You can google her easily to find out how her life turns out, but you’ll want to read the book. There is so much detail and nuance in the pages. It’s a book that really sucks you in.

Tara Westover’s life is completely one of a kind.

xo Marian