Educated by Tara Westover

 

Title: Educated

Author: Tara Westover

Read by:  Julia Whelan

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 15 minutes

Source: Downloaded through Overdrive from the Kewaunee Public Library

Educated is the August Pick for the Rogue Book Club (FLICKS Book and Movie Club).  I listened to it on audiobook, and it was a story where I couldn’t stop listening.

Educated is the memoir of Tara Westover.  She was raised by survivalist parents in the mountains of Idaho.  Her parents didn’t believe in school or hospitals.  She is not really homeschooled but is able to overcome her lack of education by studying and teaching herself to be able to take the ACT and get into college.  She is eventually able to obtain a PhD.

I felt many things while listening to this audiobook.  It was interesting to read Westover’s coming of age story where she realizes that her father is probably mentally ill and that her parents have been gaslighting her.  She really believes that doctors and medicine are evil and has a hard time personally getting over this to be able to get herself help when she needs it.  She starts out so far behind when she goes to college, it’s amazing that she is able to pull herself up and make her way through classes.  She didn’t know about the Holocaust, wars, or even the presidents of the United States.

I was horrified through large parts of this book by the abuse and trauma that takes place.  Tara’s older brother Shawn is psychologically, verbally, and physically abusive.  Their parents don’t seem to want to see this and always believe him that Tara caused his outbursts.  The family lives through an entire series of horrifying accidents where they don’t go to the hospital, but after months of healing, they live to see another day.  Tara’s mother is brain damaged, but never taken to the hospital.  Instead, they believe in folk curing and the magic of essential oils.  Tara’s mother starts an entire business based on essential oils and selling them.

Educated got mixed reviews at book club.  Other book club members were also horrified by the abuse and lack of getting medical treatment.  One member made a great point – it was a great leap from only being able to barely read to being able to go to Harvard and Cambridge.  There were gaps that needed to be filled in to make it all work out.  Otherwise, it seems like Tara Westover is a superhero that taught herself everything. 

Julia Whelan was a great narrator and was the voice of Tara Westover for me.

Overall, this was a hard book to read, but it was also hard to stop reading it.  It was horrifying, but interesting to see how Westover was able to survive her upbreaking and strive in the world.