Educated by Tara Westover

Tara was raised in a fundamentalist/ survivalist Mormon home.  Her paranoid father mistrusted anything having to do with the government so his children didn't attend school, go to the doctor or even have birth certificates.  Their education as children mostly consisted of long religious rants by their father.  As the children grew up, one of the brothers became increasingly abusive, while another decided to escape the family homestead and pursue an education.  Tara had to decide which path she would take, but leaving her mountain home, as caustic as it was, took a huge emotional toll on her.  Only when she got a fellowship at Cambridge and began to study the great philosophers of history did she begin to be able to separate her self-image from the unworthy way her family had treated her.

This is an incredibly heartrending and honest memoir that has been the top most requested e-book at my library for four months running.  The amazing thing about it is how the author is able to look back on the way her mind bent and twisted to try to justify and live with what was happening to her. The writing is masterful, but there is a hint that it is even yet hard for her to fully understand her earlier life objectively.  Part of her is still the abused, brainwashed teen on the mountain.  I think it is the vulnerability the author embraces that has made this a best seller.

Warning: this is adult literature.  It contains some really graphic and gritty scenes of violence and emotional abuse. (2018, 334 p)