Educated

Today's post is on Educated by Tara Westover. It is 352 pages long and published by Random House. The cover has a sharpened pencil on it. The intended reader is someone who is interested in memoirs of survival. There is mild foul language, no sex, and  violence it this book. The story is told from first person close the author.

From the dust jacket- An unforgettable memoir in the tradition of The Glass Castle about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.
Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled 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 severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, 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.

Review- This is a heart-breaking memoir about survival and being educated as Westover says at the end. We follow Westover from as early as she can remember to close present day. She does the best she can to recreate her childhood from journal, memories, and interviewing the family that still has something to do with her. It is a very heard read, to read about her parents terrorizing herself and her siblings, her siblings terrorizing each other, and the extreme lack in their lives. Westover does the best she can with her very limited resources and she goes very far but at a very high cost. The writing is very good, with the descriptions drawing very clear but at times disturbing images, and a very compelling narrative.

I give this Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.