Educated: A Memoir Book Summary
Tara Westover, a woman born to survivalist parents in rural Idaho who never set foot in a classroom until the age of 17, rose to earn a PhD from Cambridge University. Her memoir, Educated, is a potent one.
Tara grows up in a rigid and remote home where modern medicine and conventional education are turned aside. Deeply suspicious of the government, her father keeps the family off the grid; her mother, a herbalist and unregistered midwife, operates within the limits of their strict views. Particularly from an older brother, physical and emotional abuse shaped Tara’s childhood. Long ago, education was only a far-off idea.
Curiosity and a need for independence drive Tara to start instructing herself in grammar and algebra. She eventually gets into Brigham Young University, where she suffers great cultural shock. Her path through higher education lets her see the wider world and lets her redefine her identity, one not molded by family control or fear.
Tara finds herself conflicted as she grows academically between her allegiance to her family and her will to truth and personal development. The memoir deftly examines the conflict between love and independence, ignorance and education, and faith and reason.
Ideas: The transforming potential of knowledge
Loyalty to family against personal truth
Traversal and abuse
Personality and self-discovery
Mental illness and the denial of it