“Educated” Book Review

Title: “Educated a Memoir”

Author: Tara Westover

Date/year published: 2018

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Biography

Format: e-pub, borrowed from local library using Libby app, read on Kindle

Why did I choose to read it: The blurb sounded interesting.

Synopsis: Westover describes growing up in a remote location learning to create folk remedies and working in the scrap yard with her family. She is 17 when she enters a classroom for the first time and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge.

Thoughts:

This book is full of triggers. If you avoid any of these topics, read this book with caution: physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, racial slurs, animal deaths, physical deformity, severe burns, suicidal thoughts, conspiracy theories, gas lighting, religious zealot.

I think that about covers it.

The book itself was well written and fluid. I highlighted many beautifully written sentences. Yet, I’m in the minority, not giving it a high praise rating. It took me way too long to read; I couldn’t get into it and found it annoying – I just kept waiting for the insanity to end, for someone to yell “Stop! What are you people doing?!”. I am glad Westover escaped her upbringing, but wonder how many other kids live in similar situations?

It’s not even that I have a problem reading about any of the triggers listed above, it’s more that I get so upset that people live like this in this day and age, that no one steps in and gets the family/person the help they need.

Also, many reviews state something like “it gets to the crux of what education means…” which drew me in as much as the blurbs about the book. Yes, Westover wrote much about her education, but this was not a book about education so much as it was about a young woman escaping a cultish lifestyle through schooling. Between that and the pleasant descriptive blurb, I was left wondering if I read the same book as everyone else.

Basically, I know I need to stay away from books like this. Please don’t let me get sucked in by a well written description again, okay?

Would I re-read or recommend it? (Again, pretty self-explanatory, but reveals a lot about a book.)

Re-read: Nope.

Recommend? Only if you are interested in sociology or psychological memoirs and can handle the triggers. I have a few therapist friends who might enjoy it. But it’s not for everyone.