A review by leonormsousa
Educated by Tara Westover

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Educated was a punch in a gut that I was not expecting. I mean, all you need to do is take a look at the trigger warnings list to see that this is not some light reading. It’s violent and hard and, in my opinion, a book that’s in its basis about breaking free after growing up and living in an abusive and oppressive family. 

It’s sometimes hard, from an outside perspective, to understand how some victims have such a hard time leaving an abusive situation. And so one of my favourite things about this book is the juxtaposition of Tara’s thoughts at the time of the events and at the time of the writing. It allows us to better understand that although years after she can clearly identify herself as a victim, at the moment of the abuse it was not so easy to either see it or escape it. 

There are a lot of factors that can make you blind to what’s happening to you from your insecurities, to your (religious) education to the love you feel towards your abuser (that might never go away).
”You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them (…) You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
”It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.” 

Another topic that Tara exploits in Educated and that’s always a favourite of mine, is how your financial independence can affect your life, being a limitation for your education or trapping you in situations you want to escape from (like domestic violence).
”I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
“Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure.”

The book still touches on feminism and mental health and, of course, covers the topic of Mormonism, although the author let’s us now from the start that this is just her story and that the experiences she lived don’t necessarily have a correlation with her family’s religion. 

The one subject that I think could have been a little bit more explored was her struggles in university as someone who’d never been to school and barely had had any home classes. It feels like she quickly goes from someone who’s highly struggling to someone who’s having great success and it would have been interesting to follow the process that she went through to make that happen. 

To finish great, I’ll quote Mr. Barack Obama and say that it is, in fact, “a remarkable memoir” and one I will definitely be recommending to people who are willing to read a book that will make them uncomfortable and revolted, but that will be, without a doubt, an experience to carry for the rest of their lives. 
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