Book: Educated by Tara Westover

Date Read: February 2 to 15, 2019

Rating: 5 (of 5) stars

Educated was my book for February’s prompt from The Unread Shelf Project: a book that was gifted to me. I received this for Christmas from a friend who also works in education. While I had seen the book many times before then, I really did not know much about it. It was described to me as a book by a woman who did not have any formal education until she was 17.

That description hits on the general premise, but there is much more here than I had expected. Although it centers on the theme of education, the scope of this book goes well beyond that. I think what stands out the most here is actually the overcoming of a traumatic and abusive past. It’s interesting to see Tara’s own view of her past, her struggling in how to view her own place in the world– is she part of her family, or is she part of the rest of the world? One of the things that seemed most striking to me, was actually fairly subtle. As Tara reflects back on many of the obviously traumatic ordeals from her childhood, she does not often overtly refer to her experiences as abuse.

Tara does much reflection on the fact of her pursuit of education creating the rift between her and her past. She makes many efforts to minimize the growing distance between her and the remainder of her family. Along the way, she catches herself hanging on to pieces that she really no longer believes– such as when she realizes that even though she is accepting of modern medicine, she has not gone to get her vaccinations. However, I found it interesting that throughout her education, she still hangs on to the original tenants of her Mormonism. While she relaxes some of the extremes in her personal practices, she retains the basis of her religion, and even extends this into her educational pursuits.

Boris’s thoughts: “Long stretches of reading means long stretches of naps for me, so 3 paws here!”