City News

“Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it education.” In Educated, Tara
Westover recounts the long journey she had to take to receive her education. She teaches
readers the transformative power that education has to shatter false beliefs and fallacies.
Her parents believed in an extremist version of Mormonism, and as a result, Tara and her
siblings grew up living “off the grid” and spending their days preparing for the End of the
Days. She experienced emotional and physical abuse from her parents and her oldest
brother. Inspired by one of her other brother’s experiences with education, she realizes the
transformation that education could bring to her life and strove to one day receive it. She
worked hard and eventually left home for Brigham Young University where she began her
quest for education, which came with self-discovery and learning how to adjust to the new
world. Now a Ph.D holder, this memoir is about how Tara thrived in spite of her
upbringing and the impact that education had on her life.

I can see why Tara’s professors loved her writing. I thought that she succeeded in
displaying her writing talent through this moving memoir. Moving linearly from childhood
to adulthood, each story is built upon the previous story. She describes her unconventional
childhood, her road to education, and the impact of her experiences that still impact her in
her adulthood. Because memories (especially traumatic ones) are often cloudy in one’s
mind, she marked discrepancies with an asterisk and included side notes to include the
perspective of others. I think that her decision to do this was an impactful one that added
clarity and created a deeper understanding of her experiences. The way that she depicted
her experiences evoked tears from me and is sure to do so to other readers!

I felt a mixed feeling of happiness and sadness. Her story was sad but uplifting. Reading
the effect her education had on her relationships with her family was very sad to me.
However, it was uplifting how she was able to overcome such circumstances and forge new
relationships. I realized that if she could overcome that, I am also capable of overcoming
opposition in my life and achieving my dreams. In addition to this, I understood the
potential of education and gained a fresh, positive approach to my schoolwork.
Notably, the memoir does contain some mature themes that some may want to steer away
from. It is a difficult read that contains parental neglect, abuse, and animal cruelty. Rocky
family dynamics are also talked about.

Overall, I would highly recommend Educated. It is definitely one of my favorites! The
memoir did an excellent job of resonating with me, even though I was not able to fully
relate to her struggles. I found the writing style so beautiful as she managed to write so
concisely, and yet the sentences had some big emotional impact. Anyone would find this
memoir enjoyable, regardless of personal experience and it's easy to see why Oprah
recommended it!!

Check out Educated from NBPL!