#76 Educated

Educated by Tara Westover

Educated is the true story of Tara Westover and her family. She grew up in Bucks Peak, rural Idaho and is raised as a strict Mormon. Her father has very extreme views and doesnt believe in modern medicine or anything that is even remotely government run so much so that not only was Tara not born in a hospital, she had never set foot in one for the majority of her childhood. Tar's birth was never registered either. Her mother is a kind of herbal 'medicine woman' and heals using tinctures and essential oils mixtures and with the 'grace of god' thrown in. She is also a local midwife and helps women give birth in their own homes without the help of medicine or doctors.

The Westover family is made up of the mum and dad (i dont believe their names are ever mentioned?) and children, Tony, Tyler, Shawn, Richard, Luke, Audrey and Tara. The elder boys were born in hospital and all attended school for a few years before their father developed these extreme views and pulled them out to be 'home schooled'.

Her childhood is full of strange stories and some memories that made for very difficult reading. Her father is a difficult man to live with and is very much a 'what i say goes' type of parent. He has his own 'business' scrapping metal and building huts in which he enlists the help of his children from a very young age they are expected to operate machinery and get stuck in to help out. The children are never properly home schooled as their mother only teaches them to read and very basic maths skills, the rest is up to them, if they want to learn something they are expected to pick up a text book and read it themselves.

When Tara is 17 she sets foot in a classroom for the first time. She is accepted to BYU (Brigham Young University) which is located in Provo, Utah and run by The Church of Latter-Day Saints. Tara was encouraged to study for the entrance test by her brother Tyler and teaches herself trigonometry, grammar, algebra as well as many other things in order to pass and gain entrance. Tara is floored by the classes she takes and how little she knows about the world for example she believes that Europe in a country and not a continent and gets very confused in her geography classes. She was also never taught about the holocaust and has to look this up on the library computers.

Throughout her time at college Tara struggles to keep up with classes whilst also paying rent and basic living. She spends many hours of the day studying the basics and trying to keep up. At the end of her first semester she has achieved good grades and is granted a partial scholarship. Every summer when she returns home from college her father makes her work in the junkyard which she hates but needs the money to return to BYU so she never argues with him.

It is ultimately her time in college and being away from her family that makes her realise how backward their life and teachings are. Throughout this time Tara begins to question things and step away from that way of thinking.

Tara overcomes so much in her childhood, it really does make for an extraordinary read. Her older siblings leave home early to get away from their father. Tony works on long haul rigs in Vegas, Tyler leaves to go to college which is extremely frowned upon by their father, Audrey gets married and moves out leaving just Shawn, Richard and Luke with Tara. Shawn is extremely physically abusive and takes most of this anger out on Tara which made for some very difficult reading.

I have used a lot of inverted commas in this review and that is mainly down to the fact that her life is so strange and using words to describe events arent really accurate like 'home schooled' for example, she isnt actually properly home schooled so you cant really use that word to describe it.

I really enjoyed this book and gave it 5 stars, it was so thoughtfully written and at times you feel as if you are there. I highly recommend to any non fiction lovers.