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A review by rbruehlman
Educated by Tara Westover
5.0
Educated follows the story of Tara Westover, a girl raised by a deeply dysfunctional fundamentalist doomsday Mormon family, raised without education or much touchpoint with normalcy at all. Against the odds, Tara gets a PhD and steps into modern society, although not without much wrestling over what it means to be family, and, principally, to love and be loved.
Tara's story starts out recounting her deeply dysfunctional upbringing under her domineering and paranoid father, who is certain doomsday is coming and is passionately committed to ensuring his family would survive the inevitable. It is darkly humorous and yet painfully tragic--it is evident her parents care for her and her siblings, yet in other ways, Tara and her siblings are very much on their own. Almost die in an accident? Put some essential oils on it and keep moving. Set your leg on fire? The ten-year-old will help you as best they can by shoving you into a garbage can. Life is full of rules and fear, but it is also filled with chaos and reckless abandon.
Tara perceives little wrong with this as as a child--after all, as a child who has never been to school and is discouraged from interacting with others, why would she? She has no frame of reference. She does, eventually, get the resolve to go to school and make something of herself, in no small part because her timid brother Tyler decides to first. So she heads to college.
I admittedly lost a bit of interest once she got to college, because it felt reminiscent of two other memoirs I've read in recent years, The Center Cannot Hold and An Unquiet Mind. While both of those books are good memoirs (especially the former), they have a similar premise--against all odds, the author goes to college, is discovered as an unexpected genius by professors, gets a scholarship to a British university, gets their PhD, and makes something of themselves when no one thought they would amount to anything. It is a worthy arc, but after two similar memoirs, it ceases to be satisfying--it is too "perfect", neat, and predictable.
Thankfully, Educated does not end on this note. Indeed, although Tara's academic track record is impressive, it's actually what becomes of her during and after this process that is interesting, and, I would argue, more interesting than the first half the book (not to say the first half was boring). Tara goes through several phases of transformation. First, she is deeply loyal to her family and her religion and struggles to reconcile and fit in. She alienates her roommates and creeps out potential friends. Later, she begins to drift away from her family and religion, but is not convinced she deserves or exists as an academic, either, and is caught uneasily between two worlds. Still later yet, she begins to reject her upbringing and realizes how her insane her family is ... but that doesn't take away the hurt when her family decrees her Satan and turns against her. Tara wisely notes she is no longer the daughter her father raised, but her father is still the man who raised her. There is no neat and pretty bow on this story at the end, and there never will be.
Indeed, I think Educated's story isn't about Tara's educational success. It's really about how Tara reconciles the person she needs to be, with the person her family wants her to be. Tara's life doesn't become nice and pretty once she gets a PhD; it is complicated and messy and painful, because she is still caught in between two worlds.
What I found especially fascinating about the book was just how complex the members of her family were. Shawn was a human cockroach personified, literally and figuratively; he was an absolutely horrible human being and somehow managed to survive multiple near-death accidents. I have to confess I really truly hoped he would die.
The other members of Tara's family, however, I couldn't bring myself to dislike, even though they were deeply flawed people. Tara's father was a paranoid maniac who selfishly and callously brushed off injuries to his children, lorded over his wife, and ruled his household with a delusional religious iron fist. But he also loved his children and supported them in numerous surprising situations, like allowing Tara to sing or allowing some of his children to go to school. He declared Tara Satan, but he also wanted to bring her back. Tara's mother was a beaten-down woman who initially cowed entirely to Tara's father, but subverted him in quiet ways. After her success with midwifery and then essential oils, she found her own voice and started pushing back and standing up for herself. But yet she couldn't stand up for her children, not when it really counted. She was, in some ways, as delusional as her husband.
With the exception of Shawn, no one in Tara's family is truly all-bad; they have good elements, and are also deeply flawed. It is no small wonder Tara is so torn leaving them behind. They want what they think is best for her--emphasis on "what they think."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Tara's story starts out recounting her deeply dysfunctional upbringing under her domineering and paranoid father, who is certain doomsday is coming and is passionately committed to ensuring his family would survive the inevitable. It is darkly humorous and yet painfully tragic--it is evident her parents care for her and her siblings, yet in other ways, Tara and her siblings are very much on their own. Almost die in an accident? Put some essential oils on it and keep moving. Set your leg on fire? The ten-year-old will help you as best they can by shoving you into a garbage can. Life is full of rules and fear, but it is also filled with chaos and reckless abandon.
Tara perceives little wrong with this as as a child--after all, as a child who has never been to school and is discouraged from interacting with others, why would she? She has no frame of reference. She does, eventually, get the resolve to go to school and make something of herself, in no small part because her timid brother Tyler decides to first. So she heads to college.
I admittedly lost a bit of interest once she got to college, because it felt reminiscent of two other memoirs I've read in recent years, The Center Cannot Hold and An Unquiet Mind. While both of those books are good memoirs (especially the former), they have a similar premise--against all odds, the author goes to college, is discovered as an unexpected genius by professors, gets a scholarship to a British university, gets their PhD, and makes something of themselves when no one thought they would amount to anything. It is a worthy arc, but after two similar memoirs, it ceases to be satisfying--it is too "perfect", neat, and predictable.
Thankfully, Educated does not end on this note. Indeed, although Tara's academic track record is impressive, it's actually what becomes of her during and after this process that is interesting, and, I would argue, more interesting than the first half the book (not to say the first half was boring). Tara goes through several phases of transformation. First, she is deeply loyal to her family and her religion and struggles to reconcile and fit in. She alienates her roommates and creeps out potential friends. Later, she begins to drift away from her family and religion, but is not convinced she deserves or exists as an academic, either, and is caught uneasily between two worlds. Still later yet, she begins to reject her upbringing and realizes how her insane her family is ... but that doesn't take away the hurt when her family decrees her Satan and turns against her. Tara wisely notes she is no longer the daughter her father raised, but her father is still the man who raised her. There is no neat and pretty bow on this story at the end, and there never will be.
Indeed, I think Educated's story isn't about Tara's educational success. It's really about how Tara reconciles the person she needs to be, with the person her family wants her to be. Tara's life doesn't become nice and pretty once she gets a PhD; it is complicated and messy and painful, because she is still caught in between two worlds.
What I found especially fascinating about the book was just how complex the members of her family were. Shawn was a human cockroach personified, literally and figuratively; he was an absolutely horrible human being and somehow managed to survive multiple near-death accidents. I have to confess I really truly hoped he would die.
The other members of Tara's family, however, I couldn't bring myself to dislike, even though they were deeply flawed people. Tara's father was a paranoid maniac who selfishly and callously brushed off injuries to his children, lorded over his wife, and ruled his household with a delusional religious iron fist. But he also loved his children and supported them in numerous surprising situations, like allowing Tara to sing or allowing some of his children to go to school. He declared Tara Satan, but he also wanted to bring her back. Tara's mother was a beaten-down woman who initially cowed entirely to Tara's father, but subverted him in quiet ways. After her success with midwifery and then essential oils, she found her own voice and started pushing back and standing up for herself. But yet she couldn't stand up for her children, not when it really counted. She was, in some ways, as delusional as her husband.
With the exception of Shawn, no one in Tara's family is truly all-bad; they have good elements, and are also deeply flawed. It is no small wonder Tara is so torn leaving them behind. They want what they think is best for her--emphasis on "what they think."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.