Educated by Tara Westover: book review

Educated (2018) is set in the mountains of Idaho, rural America. It is the memoir of Tara Westover, a daughter of an extreme Survivalist. Her father is preparing for the The End of Days.

For Tara, standing up against the word of her father was forbidden. He did not send his children to school or to the doctor. None of his children’s births were registered. And they were not allowed to socialise with ‘outsiders’ – he preferred isolation from society.

Tara and her siblings were always ready for the end of the world. It never came.

Tara knew at sixteen that she had to leave home and get an education.

Her memoir is written in three parts: 1) up to the age of sixteen; 2) the gaining of education and wisdom; and 3) continuing education abroad through a scholarship, resulting in a doctorate degree.

Tara’s history course opens her eyes to American and world events, while her psychology and philosophy classes open her eyes to the personality and ideologies of her father. She also begins to understand her mother and siblings.

This is a memoir of transformation and intentional re-invention of self. It is about the building of confidence, independence, and integrity. But the writing is not self-absorbed – instead, it revolves around her family: circling, leaving, returning, cutting off, researching, and getting an educated perspective of family, friendships, community, society, and the world.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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