Educated

Educated

by Tara Westover

Happy Anniversary to my wife!  29 years.  And finished the book Educated by Tara Westover.  It is her memoir, the story of growing up in the mountain region of Idaho with Mormon parents who decided to home-school her. This decision was based on her father’s belief that the schools were teaching students lies and sins, including his other children.  Tara grew up in a very abusive family situation, certainly emotional/verbal abuse from her father, and physical/emotional/verbal abuse from one of her brothers.  The book moves from her hard work on the farm/mountain for her father to her college education with a scholarship to Harvard and Oxford, where she earned her PhD.  Tara acquires a formal education but also learns about how the abuse affects her emotional development.  It is a hard book to get through.  As a first-generation student, I would have liked a bit more about the struggles in her pursuit of education.  Clearly the abuse issues are important as well. She needed to validate that these things happened to her but also show that others in this situation that there are ways to move past a life of abuse.  It is the NYU first-year student read this year – so glad I read it.