What I’m Reading: Educated

Kayla contacted me a bit ago and said, “Mom-remember how you love the book The Glass Castle?  I’m only a little ways into the book but I can already tell that you’ll love it.  It’s well worth burning an Audible credit.”  And so with that recommendation, I bought the audio book Educated by Tara Westover.  This book is a memoir like The Glass Castle was.

So did I like it….YES.  I really did.  The is the story of a rough and tumble girl that struggles to find her place in her family and her place in the world.  Things happen in the story that lead the main character Tara to become estranged from her family.  The book is written several years after she parts with them.  Her parting is completely justified…but I do question her placement of the blame.  I don’t want to say more than that or I’ll give too much away.  The book is REALLY Really good.  I do recommend it.

Here’s what Amazon had to say:“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.”

Amazon readers gave the book 4.7 stars.  I’d have to agree.  I really liked the book and I think it would be a really good for a book club to read.  There are many facets to the story giving different avenues for discussion.