Educated

Author(s): Tara Westover

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Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected. She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she'd never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn't believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn't exist. As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd travelled 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 with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, from her singular experience 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.  

~ Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist Mormon family, led by a Father whose religious conviction controlled and contorted their every waking minute. His paranoia about the influence of a 'corrupt' government, and society in general meant the family lived in an isolated part of Idaho. Her mother, a reluctant midwife, created tinctures and balms from herbs and flowers treating every ill the family might have. Their home; a ramshackle mix of a dangerous sprawling junk-yard, horse stables and buried tanks of gasoline. Nothing is typical about Tara’s upbringing. Peppered throughout Tara’s early life are examples of family violence, gas-lighting, and manipulation at its worst. Yet despite what can only be described as a harrowing start to life Tara found the strength to strike out on her own and become educated, not only in the academic sense but also in the sense of self worth. As this memoir unfolds, two things become clear: her only hope of escaping life in Idaho is through education and the one thing preventing her from true freedom will be the binding ties of family. A gripping and well written memoir bound to stun you at every page. If you have read In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park and The Glass Castleby Jeannette Walls then this will appeal. Gaby

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Shortlisted for the 2018 BAMB Readers' Awards · Recommended as a summer read by Antony Beevor, India Knight, Blake Morrison and Nina Stibbe

'Educated is a remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho who strives for education while still showing great understanding and love for the world she leaves behind.' - BARACK OBAMA   'A memoir to stand alongside classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage ... a compelling and ultimately joyous account of self-determination' - Sunday Times

Tara Westover was born in rural Idaho. She studied history at Brigham Young University and upon graduation was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She received an MPhil in intellectual history from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009, and a PhD in the same subject in 2014.

General Fields

  • : 9780099511021
  • : Random House UK
  • : WINDMILL BOOKS
  • : 0.277
  • : October 2018
  • : ---length:- '19.8'width:- '12.9'units:- Centimeters
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Tara Westover
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 270.092 B
  • : 400
  • : BM