Title: Educated
Publication Year: 2018
Plot: Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes and the will to change it.
Miscellaneous: Educated spent more than two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list and is being translated into 45 languages
The readers could not wait to start talking about Educated. Everyone had a lot to say and they couldn’t wait to get the conversation going. Off the bat, we started talking about why Tara might have written a memoir. One of them pointed out how much it sucks to have your story told by others–to have your life summed up and defined by people that aren’t you, or don’t even know you. She said it happened to her in the media: the media went and rewrote her childhood and sought to explain everything. Perhaps Tara wants to reclaim what is hers and tell it in her own way.
A lot of readers said they felt sad as they were reading it, sympathizing with Tara and the fear and paranoia she may have felt for a lot of her life. But then again, she didn’t know much better than the world she was raised in. But once she left the world she was raised in, she was absolutely thirsty for knowledge and learning. We thought it was interesting she ended up studying history and historians. She realized the opportunities before her and seized them! We talked of two influential figures in her life: her bishop at Brigham Young University and her mentor/professor at Cambridge. The bishop knew she needed help, and he persisted in his efforts to help her even though she refused them time and time again. We wondered why she refused help from so many people. An obvious answer is because her father never took help from anyone, whether they were a doctor, teacher, or anyone else. There was some sort of natural distrust built in her early on and it took her a while to overcome it. She then had that professors at Cambridge who loved her writing and pushed her to extend her learning. The readers talked about how incredible it is, the impact certain individuals can have on one’s life and how they alter a trajectory. And in addition to that, Tara learned to do what she saw not necessarily what she was taught. Some of the readers commented that they had done something similar: they were taught things they went against. Not necessarily the same things Tara was taught, but the way they were raised.
We couldn’t talk about the book without talking about the family dynamics. One reader said her brother Shawn needs a “really good ass-kicking, and then some.” Tara’s mother was a perplexing figure. At times it seemed like she knew things could and should be better, but she was so beholden to her husband and his way of rearing their family. We admitted that the parents did instill some great qualities in their children, largely self-reliance and a sound work ethic. After all, the 3 children that left home not only obtained a bachelor’s degree, but earned a PhD as well–no small feat!
The readers thoroughly enjoyed this book; they couldn’t put it down. We had a lot of questions that we would have loved to ask Tara, largely her relationship with her siblings and her relationship to deity and religion.
Thanks for joining us. Next week, we’ll be reading Lolita in Tehran.
Feel free to leave comments below. We’d love to hear what you think.
Until next time,
E.
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