I received this book for Christmas after having seen a lot of hype around it on various sites. I tend to read mostly fiction and would not likely have bought this book for myself. Reading it, though, I found myself wondering how much of this memoir could be real. Don’t get me wrong- I absolutely believe that Tara Westover lived through the events of the book. I believe the off-grid existence, and the doomsday prepping, and the abuse. What I had trouble reconciling myself to […]
Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind.
Educated is the memoir of Tara Westover who, despite being in her early thirties, really does have a story to tell. My mother read this in her book group this past fall and raved about it to me, so much so that I bought it immediately on my kindle. I started reading it about week ago, and was immediately mesmerized. The prose in this book is compelling and hypnotically readable. I’ve been sitting on this book for a week trying to figure out how to […]
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
Educated is a force of nature. There is very little I can say here that hasn’t been said already, and probably more eloquently, but Tara Westover’s memoir about growing up the daughter of Mormon survivalists in Idaho was one of the best books I read in 2019. Oh, it is only January 6th? Nah, I stand by it. Educated felt like a combination between The Glass Castle and Beyond Belief while still remaining in a class all its own. “It happens sometimes in families: one child who doesn’t fit, […]
In Rural Idaho, No One Can Hear You Scream
In the category Genres I Like to Read, memoir and horror tie for dead last. (Elizabeth Gilbert is a shameless exhibitionist. Fight me.) However, when a book makes all the “Best of the Year” lists, I feel obligated to give it the old Amazon 1-Click. In the mountains of Idaho, Tara is the last child of a devout Mormon couple—so devout that their youngest children have no birth certificates, have never been to school, and do not go to the doctor, not even for grievous […]