Educated, A Memoir

Tara Westover carries the reader through a storm so intense that they are rocked. This first novel shares a complex story of religious fervor, (Mormon) a search for purity, and the challenge of mental illness lived by those in Tara’s family circle.
Tara has become part of the circle of her parent’s flawed world view that is stiff and unrelenting. There is tension between her and her many siblings. The family led by patriarch and matriarch see’s formal education in large part as a scheme of dark forces (the Devil and/or the government). Mother is a self declared mid wife who also creates potions and elixirs to cure all ailments. Father rambles and rants to family and anyone in earshot for hours on end about . . . yes, the end times. This memoir does not present caricatures and exaggerated sketches of the family Westover. The pious demand of purity or nothing guides the clan.
The novel is rich in precise accounts of life on ‘the mountain’ Buck’s Peak. The family is presented as a large extension of a father’s obsession and a mother’s compliance with a man who is bipolar. A brother Shawn presents his own set of dangers that are inflicted repeatedly on the entire family. Through all the obstacles Tara has an incredible mind that remains curious. She asks questions, is silenced and continues to press. When all appears lost, her reason and guiding academics at Brigham Young University (BYU) and Cambridge, England provide a safe place for Tara to learn.
This novel does not provide a neat package for the reader in the concluding chapters. We are called to think and reason and grasp what it means to be educated.
I recommend this memoir to all who see lifelong learning as a cornerstone of what it means to be human.