Book Review — Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover’s story is unique but the overall themes are not. The themes are extremely relatable and translate into so many aspects of life:

• Growing up and making your own life choices
• Education — learning and growing through deeper understanding
• Not feeling like you belong
• Creating an identity for one’s self; an identity that my be very separate or different than one’s origin story or those they are associated with
• Trauma from accidents or unfortunate life events, e.g., car accidents, freak injury, etc.

The first hundred pages were a little tough to get into but this is the meat of the story. You first get introduced to the Westover family dynamics, then there is a deeper character development causing you to be on the edge of your seat for the next two hundred pages. The jest of the story is that Tara Westover grew up in a Mormon household with a survivalist mentality. The mentality that would lead the family to build a bunker, save up for the end of times, or buck modern medicine and education. Tara had no formal education until College and largely self taught her way to get into BYU. It’s a messy story about life, family, and education.

Book Rating 9/10