A review by williamc
Educated by Tara Westover

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

 Having grown up in Utah (as a family that was the other "m": military, not Mormon) so much of this book resonated with memories of our encounters with the more stringent aspects of Christian-based fundamentalism. Westover's characterizations also struck true for those who have encountered that ranging Western persona of the "man with an angle," or the hyper-erratic and hyper-violent relation, or the impossible to pin down people-pleaser whose true motivations are likely lost to themself. This book also strangely read like one long college admissions essay in which Westover hopes to win over not a university's but our our understanding of how unpredictable her upbringing was, and how too predictable her internalization of its problems became to the point that her successes, far superior to what an average person her age might achieve, come to seem as barely acceptable to define her identity within the constraints of her family. Compulsively readable, and at times utterly horrific, this is such a grounding read for individuals who grew up in the Intermountain West, where such families and experiences, and such attempts to escape them, seem as much as part of the mountainous landscape as the geographical heights that its inhabitants aspire equally to surmount.