A review by satsumaorange
Educated by Tara Westover

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

Holy cow. What is it with me and reading books at the EXACT right time in my life that I needed to read them? This was phenomenal. Gut-wrenching. Hard to listen to at some points (I listened to the audiobook). It was scary to be in the midst of the deepest, darkest parts of the author's life, and then out of nowhere, she would describe an experience so incredibly specific, but so deeply familiar to my own life, that it caught me completely off guard. This book made me think deeply about what it means to think for yourself. Who do we allow to do our thinking for us? Who do we allow to construct our reality? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Grief, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent, Dementia, Gun violence, Abandonment, Ableism, Miscarriage, and Stalking

If you are reading these content warnings and are concerned about non-consensual sexual content:

The author does not describe any sexual touching or rape scenes, only scenes of physical abuse that may have themes of body shaming and/or humiliation. It's extremely uncomfortable, but there are no descriptions of rape in this book, if that is a hard limit for you.