Educated Paperback – 1 January 2018

The book is a little heavy and uninteresting to begin with and doesn't hook you instantly, but when it does, oh my god, believe me when I say this, if you read it a little each day and let the words get absorbed in you, you'll find pure bliss. The details in this book has amazed me, disgusted me and overpowered me through the span of these 2 months. Nothing here looked superficial, everything was very raw, human like and that's what made it special. The art of storytelling is an amazing thing, it quite makes or breaks the experience of readers. I would indeed say, this was possibly the best book I've read in my entire life till now, (that includes all the mind boggling non-fiction novels too). Being a PhD student myself, was the reason I picked up this book, but when I finished it, I would understand the real value of 'Education' in life. How it changes a person, like really the 'self' of that person. It's like-'At most, there are 2 persons living inside this body, with one fractured mind. When it was time, she left, she stayed in the mirror. The incidents, decisions that followed were entirely mine, not hers anymore.'

The first half is slow and gets a little dull but the second half picks up pace.It's a good read, interesting yet sad how someone can completely cut off from the outer world and make one of their own, rejecting the other's principles and beliefs entirely and remain so rigid, no matter the cost.And praises to the author who manages to get out of that rigid world and acknowledge her truth.

I picked up this book after reading the reviews. Once I started reading it, it consumed me. It became extremely difficult to put down the book, and I had to finish it with minimum breaks. No doubt the content is engrossing, but much more than that, what appeals is Tara' s style of story telling. With her words, she created scene by scene, picture frames in the mind. I finished the book 2 days ago but it is still lingering in the mind and resurfacing time and again. I feel as if I have watched a moving and scenes keep framing in the mind. This is an exceptional piece of writing. I may be wrong but I believe that lack of elementary schooling has given Tara an independent perspective and prevented her from making a stereotypical narration of her story and that makes the story stand out and demands respect and awe.I am very eagerly waiting for some one to buy the film rights of this book and make a movie. It will be a classic. This book should not go without a movie, the visual treat will be complementing the text.Thank you Tara for writing this.

This is a long review. I couldn't help myself, there's just so much to dig into.TLDR version - It's a riveting story of an extremist family of survivalists, the eccentricities and abuse they put their daughter through, and her story of triumph to educate and extricate herself from an increasingly toxic situation. Must read.When Tara Westover speaks of her education, she isn't just talking about her academic achievements. She is talking about her transformation from a misinformed girl, struggling under her father’s controlling thumb, to a woman capable of making decisions about her own life.There are 3 themes in the book that really spoke to me: Tara’s family and their eccentricities, the abuse she faces at their hands, and her integration into mainstream society.At first, it's funny. Tara is born into a family of crazies – they are ultra conservative and ultra-religious, and they think the world is ending. They stockpile canned foods, guns and oil to prep for the end of days. Her father’s conspiracy theories revolve around everything from the Government, to the healthcare system, to the education system, to the post office, to the Illuminati. He doesn’t believe in doctors, or washing hands after using the toilet, or wearing seatbelts. Again and again, he puts the family at risk, because he really, truly believes that God and his angels are looking out for them, and anything that goes wrong is the will of God.Mild spoilers up ahead.There's a movie I just love, Captain Fantastic, about a family that lives off the grid and is better off for it. Educated tells a much scarier story. Tara’s parents show such a complete lack of concern for their children's safety it's a wonder that none of them died or had permanent injuries. The entire family works at a junkyard, the father doesn’t allow gloves and a hard hat, and has his children working with obviously dangerous equipment. Tara’s brother burns his leg while cutting away gasoline filled car engines using a blow torch. The family has two nearly fatal car accidents because her father insisted on driving at night to prove a point. When accidents happened, as they often did, her parents insisted on self-mediacating with essential oils and homeopathy. For most of the first half of the book I had my breath held and a pit in my stomach expecting someone to die or lose a limb. “We had been bruised and gashed and concussed, had our legs set on fire and our heads cut open,” Tara says. “We had lived in a state of alert, a kind of constant terror, our brains flooding with cortisol because we knew that any of those things might happen at any moment. Because Dad always put faith before safety. Because he believed himself right, and he kept on believing himself right…And it was us who paid.”Tara’s older brothers play a big role in her upbringing. Her quiet brother, Tyler, introduces her to music and inspires her to start reading and apply for college. Her boisterous brother, Shaun, is the father figure she never had. There is a quietly beautiful moment with Shaun when he teaches her how to break a wild horse. The horse she is riding on panics and Shaun deftly rushes in to save her from a dangerous fall. For the first time in her life Tara realizes she can actually count on someone else when she is in trouble. Then Shaun's mean streak starts to show. It starts with cruel jokes, calling her a whore, and devolves into outright emotional and physical abuse. He beats her, pulls her by the hair, chokes her and pushes her head into the toilet repeatedly. He plays mind games with her, embarrassing her in front of her boyfriend, creating excuses to pick a fight. Most heartbreakingly, her parents stand by, watch and do nothing. Worse, they enable it. When she finally confronts them years later they gaslight her. Her father demands proof, makes her question her memories and turns her family against her. Her mother is a classic enabler, fluctuating between maternal protector, idle bystander and co-abuser.There’s a lot more to this book as Tara delves into her life in BYU, Cambridge and then Harvard. There are a lot of funny but sad stories of Tara, in college for the first time, never having heard of the Holocaust or the Civil Rights movement, and coming to terms with how little she knows about the world around her. I’ll leave you to explore those – they fill you with bittersweetness.

Good quality book