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Educated Book Review

  • Writer: The Choate Piggy
    The Choate Piggy
  • Jan 27, 2019
  • 1 min read

Book title: Educated

Author: Tara Westover


School to most may seem like a no-brainer, but Tara Westover didn’t enter a classroom until she was seventeen years old. Born into a devout Mormon family living in the mountain’s of Idaho, Tara’s childhood was characterized by assisting her mother as both midwife and healer, experiencing the often dangerous manual labor in her father’s junkyard, and enduring the constant physical and verbal abuse of her older brother Shawn. It is her family’s distrust of the government, which barred her from schooling and medical care, combined with the psychologically and physically detrimental actions of her brother Shawn, that convinces Tara to find a way out.


In her disturbing, heartbreaking, and inspiring memoir, Westover details her journey through self education. She studies to gain a score of 28 on the ACT, moves on to attend Brigham Young University, and eventually attends both Cambridge, where she earns her PhD, and Harvard, where she is a visiting fellow. In the midst of her immense success, or rather the evil that has overtaken her in the eyes of her parents, Tara is practically disowned and challenged when she comes forward regarding her brother’s years of abuse.


Verdict: Tara Westover has written a memoir that reveals the power of an education: the opportunity to gain a new perspective through an understanding of the world around you, and the power to change one’s life.


Reviewed by: Caroline Rispoli'20

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