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Educated: The international bestselling memoir by [Tara Westover]

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Tara Westover

Educated: The international bestselling memoir Kindle Edition

by Tara Westover (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER

Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST,NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE

'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day
'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill
'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous'Sunday Times

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old.?

At sixteen, to escape her father's radicalism and a violent older brother, Tara left home. What followed was a struggle for self-invention, a journey 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.

'It will make your heart soar' Guardian
'Jaw-dropping and inspiring, everyone should read this book' Stylist
'Absolutely superb . . . so gripping I could hardly breathe' Sophie Hannah

Print length

381 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Cornerstone Digital
Publication date

20 February 2018
File size

4226 KB
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Review

A memoir to stand alongside classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage . . . a compelling and ultimately joyous account of self-determination ― Sunday Times

[A] fascinating, jaw-dropping memoir -- Nina Stibbe ― Observer

[A] superb memoir… Westover’s journey from a remote corner of the American west to one of the world’s grandest seats of learning is extraordinary . . . Her story, of fighting to be herself, is as old as the hills she came from, but Westover gives us such a fresh, absorbing take that it deserves to bring her own private Idaho into the bestseller lists, book groups and, eventually, cinemas. ― The Times

Brilliantly recounts her journey towards knowledge and enlightenment -- Blake Morrison ― Guardian

An amazing story, and truly inspiring. The kind of book everyone will enjoy. IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN YOU’VE HEARD.

-- Bill Gates --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

An extraordinary memoir about a woman's discovery of education, its transformative power and the price she has to pay for it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Tara Westover was born in rural Idaho. She studied history at Brigham Young University and upon graduation was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She received an MPhil in intellectual history from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009, and a PhD in the same subject in 2014. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others."--The New York Times Book Review

"Westover is a keen and honest guide to the difficulties of filial love, and to the enchantment of embracing a life of the mind."--The New Yorker

"An amazing story, and truly inspiring. It's even better than you've heard."--Bill Gates

"Heart-wrenching . . . a beautiful testament to the power of education to open eyes and change lives."--Amy Chua, TheNew York Times Book Review

"A coming-of-age memoir reminiscent of The Glass Castle."--O: The Oprah Magazine

"Westover's one-of-a-kind memoir is about the shaping of a mind. . . . In briskly paced prose, she evokes a childhood that completely defined her. Yet it was also, she gradually sensed, deforming her."--The Atlantic

"Tara Westover is living proof that some people are flat-out, boots-always-laced-up indomitable. Her new book, Educated, is a heartbreaking, heartwarming, best-in-years memoir about striding beyond the limitations of birth and environment into a better life. . . . ★★★★ out of four."--USA Today

"[Educated] left me speechless with wonder. [Westover's] lyrical prose is mesmerizing, as is her personal story, growing up in a family in which girls were supposed to aspire only to become wives--and in which coveting an education was considered sinful. Her journey will surprise and inspire men and women alike."--Refinery29

"Riveting . . . Westover brings readers deep into this world, a milieu usually hidden from outsiders. . . . Her story is remarkable, as each extreme anecdote described in tidy prose attests."--The Economist

"A subtle, nuanced study of how dysfunction of any kind can be normalized even within the most conventional family structure, and of the damage such containment can do."--Financial Times

"Whether narrating scenes of fury and violence or evoking rural landscapes or tortured self-analysis, Westover writes with uncommon intelligence and grace. . . . One of the most improbable and fascinating journeys I've read in recent years."--Newsday

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES'S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S AWARD IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • Time • NPR • Good Morning America • San Francisco Chronicle • The Guardian • The Economist • Financial Times • Newsday • New York Post • theSkimm • Refinery29 • Bloomberg • Self • Real Simple • Town & Country • Bustle • Paste • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • LibraryReads • BookRiot • Pamela Paul, KQED • New York Public Library 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 Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her 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 one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. 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. "Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Tara 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?"-Vogue "Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others."-The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

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 she decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her 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, from her singular experience 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. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07142R12X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cornerstone Digital; 1st edition (20 February 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4226 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 381 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0399590528

Best Sellers Rank: 3,752 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1 in Mormonism (Kindle Store)
- 2 in Mormonism (Books)
- 7 in Parenting & Family Reference

Customer Reviews:
54,061 ratings

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Tara Westover

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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.

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4 star		22%
3 star		5%
2 star		1%
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Maggie Casey

Worthy of my first book review!

Reviewed in Australia on 19 February 2019

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I am a private reader. I do not discuss books post reading them but instead internalise the effect they have on me. This in fact is my first book review. So why am I writing this? Educated left me in a way no other book has. I feel eager to share my experience reading it. Not because it was a piece of literary genius, it is not that, in fact many times I could only read a short snippet and then would put the book down again. It’s heavy, at times trying and it’s real.

However, there are several themes within the book that really stuck me. The life changing sacrifices people are willing to make for their families, something I have always been aware of but Tara’s story shares this in a completely uncomprehendile way to what I’ve ever know. Religion and how deep belief can run. How someone with little to no education and such a sheltered view of the world could catch up and then exceed well beyond her peers. Herbal medicine- I told a story from the book countless times to friends, still in awe at what herbal medicine and the incredible power of belief could do.

The book is slow at times and word dense however there was never a moment I doubted that I would finish it, I felt for Tara and desperately wanted to see her succeed throughout her story.

If there was one thing I left this book feeling, it was just that, Educated.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

How to survive survivalists!

Reviewed in Australia on 27 May 2019

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An interesting look into the dynamics of a dysfunctional poor, mountain country survivalists Mormon family through the eyes of the youngest child Tara. How could a child abused, neglected and who never attended school become a Cambridge Doctor? Well, through sheer will power it seems.

As a book club read this is bound to provoke a variety of discussions. From bipolar to religion to survivalists and mental abuse. Sure this book asks more questions than it answers and has many gaps in time. However, if you were to review your own life ,I’m sure you would find the same. Each family member would no doubt remember things differently to you. I have already recommended this book to a friend. An interesting tale and style of writing.

5 people found this helpful

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Best seller?.... Don’t agree

Reviewed in Australia on 8 May 2021

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This could only be written by an American Mormon, over use of words and repetitive history nearly made me drop reading this long winded tome halfway through. But ... because is was a chosen book club book I pressed on. It didn’t get any better.
In my opinion Tara Westover felt so sorry for herself and was totally absorbed in her own bubble she couldn’t see the real world. I felt very sorry for her involvement in such strong male domination that I hope enlightenment came eventually to create a life without the brainwashing of a cult.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Astonishing

Reviewed in Australia on 2 May 2018

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It’s easy to see why this book is a best seller. It’s an extraordinarily gripping account of an astonishing life. The youngest of six children, Tara Westover describes being raised by hardcore Mormon parents in a remote part of Idaho. Her father is particularly terrifying. Poor, dealing scrap and building barns etc for a living, he requires his children to do extremely dangerous jobs with a huge disregard for their safety. Severe accidents were common. Her mother is a herbalist and midwife. In their view, the government is socialist and out to get them. Ordinary medicine is all a hoax. The End Day’s are coming, and the wise family prepares by stockpiling food, fuel and ammunition.

When the unschooled Tara gets into Brigham Young University, it’s the beginning of hard separation from her family, and the ideas she was raised with. It’s a hard, hard journey, leading eventually to Cambridge, Harvard and a PhD, and she tells it brilliantly, and, I imagine, with a huge degree of difficulty. It’s a story of great courage. She had to struggle for her selfhood much more than most and what it cost her is humbling.

4 people found this helpful

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B. Michel

Not your normal FLDS family

Reviewed in Australia on 30 September 2018

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I get into patterns where I read as many books about specific subjects. I've been reading/studying FLDS for years and years, never short of astounded at the depths of this very insular group of people. Which was why I bought this in the first place. It was recommended to me so highly that my Kindle had it within half an hour. But this true story is so very different... the FLDS faction had very little to do with this remarkable story. Tara is a phenomenal human being, wise and damaged and brilliant and solitary and a great writer. I think I'll remember this one forever.

6 people found this helpful

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Sarah Bacaller

What a story!

Reviewed in Australia on 21 February 2022

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What courage and determination Tara Westover has demonstrated in both living this story, and writing it for others to read. A truly memorable memoir of the difference that education, social attitudes and skills make for human confidence and wellbeing. Some of the stories of Westover's upbringing beggar belief; she demonstrates the way in which attitudes towards human life have a profound effect on the capacity of human beings to engage and flourish in society — and she has learned this the hard way, by growing up in a family so suspicious of 'the outside world' that they endured unimaginable suffering to avoid it, sadly perpetuating this suffering in their children. Westover's book is a story of discovering and making freedom.

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Kylie Di Mauro

Brilliant read

Reviewed in Australia on 5 August 2019

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I haven’t read a memoir this good for a long time. Tara shares her story so well and I couldn’t put the book down. Her struggle to learn more and against all odds were inspiring. I was frustrated with her for caring about her family so much, but that is life and made her story even more special. We are all a product of our upbringing and choose whether to break down the walls or stay contained. Well done on living an inspiring life, written into an unforgettable memoir.

One person found this helpful

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Exceptional

Reviewed in Australia on 4 July 2018

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Couldn't put it down. I was raised a JW and disowned by my family after leaving. I also had a breakdown at choice between surrendering myself or my family. I identified fully with her watching tv for hours a day and feelings of losing ones mind and then recovering. Put back together in a different way. Thank you for writing this book. I don't feel so alone.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mrs. S. Thorne

A bit depressing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2018

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I expected this book to be more redemptive, and it finally left me rather depressed. I suppose I was waiting for the author's vindication, and I probably wanted a bit of retribution to fall on those appalling parents and that horrible brother. It is hard to believe this was happening during the 21st century, and I admire the author for her ultimate escape, though I was frustrated by the number of times she returned home and faced more abuse. Don't want to re-read it.

132 people found this helpful

Bookthrower

Educational

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 April 2018

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Some autobiographical memoirs of traumatic childhoods are
self-pitying and self- absorbed. This one is not. The author gives a balanced picture of her troubled family,in which madness is combined with ingenuity, intelligence and grit, and of the wider Mormon community in which she grew up. It provides a fascinating insight into the complex effects of mental illness on family relationships and the individual. It is also a moving story of one individual's successful struggle to overcome those effects and live a satisfying life.

127 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

I've been Educated

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2018

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Usually I take issue with someone younger than me churning out a memoir. On this occasion I’m all for it. This is a stonker. I couldn’t believe that it’s based in the late 20th and early 21st century. I kept slipping into an assumption that it was 1960s America.

I read a review in a broadsheet that mentioned Westover’s author’s voice being distant and a little cold. I didn’t feel this at all. I felt it was all the more powerful for not being doused in flowery descriptions. It was clear and real and honest.

I like the references to how reliable a storyteller is, how our memories differ and how, in real life we have to find a way of weaving varying recollections to find a truth.

It’s an anthem to the power of education and knowledge. Fascinating and incredibly readable. The numerous accidents felt like the tense moments in an episode of Casualty. You know whenever there’s a scene with a tractor that something horrific is going to happen.

It's a 4 for now but more of a 4.5..

105 people found this helpful

millhall

Educated, against the odds.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 December 2018

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A remarkable book , written by a remarkable person. Brought up by parents who were fanatical Mormons, she had to suffer threats and aggression from a dysfunctional brother, a childhood without any formal education and repeated pronouncements that the end of the world was nigh. Despite spending much of her pre- pubertal years as an unpaid labourer, she contrived to turn her life around and ended up as a scholar in both Cambridge and Oxford. Inevitably, she had great difficulty in maintaining relationships largely because core facts about history and life outside the teachings of the Mormon Church were a blank page to her. She had never heard of the Holocaust; knew nothing of the World Wars and was told that the authorities had murdered members of another Mormon family because of their faith. Despite all of these encumbrances, she became a highly respected academic. Her success was bought at the price of her family relationships but she came to accept that cost. The book can be a little fragmentary with no continuous chronological line, but it is a compelling read which I will not easily forget.

79 people found this helpful

A gripping read and an incredible story powerfully told

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 February 2019

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This is an absolutely riveting book that I couldn’t put down until finally I had finished it in the small hours of the morning.

Tara Westover tells the story of her childhood and upbringing with such descriptive narrative that it’s easy to see the farm and mountain where she grew up and to imagine what it must have been like to be a young girl in her family house.

When the first incidents start to appear one is held in a kind of shock. This is horrible, so wrong, so very wrong that she is treated like this and we wait for someone to recognise the abuse and intervene and put a stop to it.

But the interventions never come and with each successive incident of abuse, violence and gross neglect we read on in increasing disbelief and horror that no one has stopped these people, called them out on what they are doing and stepped in to protect the victims.

Tara tells her life story so skilfully, she somehow allows us to experience what she went through and yet disassociate from the worst parts simultaneously in the same way she did. It’s such brilliant brilliant writing technique to tell us and yet show us in the same sentence. Offering narrative of what her future self came to understand was happening to her, she relays at the same time perfectly how the young girl she was then lived it.

With either carefully crafted intention or from therapeutic necessity (or maybe both) she leads the reader to flow through the story narrative smoothly and expertly and then stop abruptly when an incident happens. The way she writes and explains each incident forces a rereading of the paragraph more than once, for suddenly there’s a change in pace here and it’s relayed from a disassociated perspective whilst still remaining in the first person.

I can’t help thinking that this emulates in part the way she herself must have visited and revisited these same incidents repeatedly in her head and in her journal to try to make sense of what has happening to her. Except she somehow found a way to normalise it so she could continue to survive and function in such a dangerous hostile environment.

Truly it’s such marvellous intelligent writing and all the more painful for it. We feel a truer impact of her painful incredible story and feel for her in a way that is at once frustrating because we are powerless ourselves to step in and save her from the people who are her family. Or even perhaps to save them all from themselves.

It’s interesting that this is domestic abuse and violence in full flow but Tara never calls it that in the book, save a indicative third party reference in the end. She reaches for instead repeatedly, an understanding of why her family behaved the way they did. Her love for them and need not to unfairly label them, even whilst recalling such pain, is obvious even here.

In some ways the second and last part of the book are more heartbreaking and haunting. Whilst clearly all the physical wounds have healed and by the power of her own internal will, strength, resilience and focus and determination she has transformed her life into what any of us would applaud as a brilliant success (and most of us can only aspire to in our dreams), there is a feeling that this is all overshadowed by the pain of her cruel and unfair eviction from the family.

She describes the effects of their gaslighting with disturbing clarity. Physical violence is one thing but to undermine and eradicate a person’s sense of reality and self belief is an abhorrent abuse that leaves no visible scars, yet has a destructive force that can demolish a life from the inside out.

There’s a sense that even with her intellectual understanding, she still underneath it all keenly feels she’s had to pay a high price for her personal safety, success and happiness. That whilst more than half of her family have cruelly rejected and evicted her and continue to slander her in attempt to regain lost power and control, she still feels love and undercurrents of loyalty towards them even whilst she knows she can no longer concede to the abuse.

The book is an excellent example of the devastating cost an absence of education and self-belief can have. What Tara Westover doesn’t emphasise and is notably non-vocal and modest about is her own inspiring inner strength and brilliance as a human being.

One can’t help but feel that in the absence of having a family who appreciated their incredible good fortune to have such a remarkable daughter in their lives and who lived up to their responsibilities, she at some point is finally able to fully let go of them within herself. To fully let go of that innate desire to have the love and regard of her parents. Is this ever truly possible for a child, even an adult one? That’s debateable but if anyone deserves to be happy and free and lighthearted and at true peace within herself, it’s undoubtedly Tara Westover.

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