Our September book, EDUCATED, is a memoir by Tara Westover. The youngest of seven children, Tara recounts her experience growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho, living mostly in isolation with her family, no formal education, not much money, and few ties to the surrounding community. Against all odds, Tara decides to follow the example of an estranged brother who has gone to college. Her quest for knowledge takes her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University, and further divides her from the family that was once her world.

Linny says this is the kind of book that Nancy and Linny could talk about for hours, laying on a bed. It was riveting and had so many components. In the end, Nancy thought it was a book about identity. Linny loved the complexity of the family’s dysfunction and mental health issues.

Tara is supposed to be home-schooled, but in reality, there is no schooling. Tara’s father owns a junkyard and presses his children into working with him with little regard to their safety. He has a terrible temper, little regard for safety, self-aggrandizing opinions, and expectes unconditional obedience, especially from his wife and his daughters.

As Tara gets older, she starts seeing cracks in her father’s edifice. His prophecies don’t come to fruition. She notices her mother, though extremely submissive, allows her to do things, but then won’t stand up to Gene when things blow up. Instead, Tara is left to defend herself. Tara doesn’t like how her family basically disowns her brother, Luke, who decides to go to BYU. The lesson is if you disobey you are expelled. Tara suffers physical and emotional abuse but even in her journals, she downplays the problems and lies to herself about the abuse she is experiencing. Her brother Shawn is like a more violent Gene who is allowed to be physically abusive to (and nearly kill) Tara, her older sister, Audrey, and his various girlfriends and his eventual wife. No one really calls him to task but instead it isn’t happening. As she furthers her education and attempts to come to terms with her family’s view of the world, she is basically given a choice of “believe the family stories of how the world operates or be cast out.”

Linny and Nancy both say EDUCATED is a 10/10 read!