#24: Educated by Tara Westover
Educated by Tara Westover (352 pages)
Like many couples, my wife and I gift each other books on Christmas. In 2018 I gave her the memoir Educated by Tara Westover. She didn't actually receive it on Christmas Day because I lost it by forgetting that it was in my dad's car, but she eventually got it. She read it in one sitting. For her, it hit close to home in a variety of ways, such as reminding her of the propane tank buried in her parent's yard. She had a physical reaction to it and would snap it shut out of frustration. I had been meaning to read it ever since seeing her reaction.
It did not disappoint. This is the kind of book you want to talk about with your friends. "How about that car accident!? No not the first one, the SECOND one! Wasn't that CRAZY?!" Ms. Westover was raised in a small Idaho town in a family that did not believe in the public school system, modern medicine, or the government. In their minds, it was all corrupted and evil. She had an older brother who was abusive and cruel, a mother who worked as midwife and homeopathic healer, and a survivalist father convinced that the feds would come for them one day. Just one of these personalities would make for an engaging read, but she was living with all three!
Tara recounts one shocking story after another. Chapter after chapter I audibly exclaimed out of disbelief. I shook my head, closed my eyes, and groaned in frustration. I was physically responding to what I was reading, much like my wife had. Ms. Westover tells her story with such grace that I felt I had to react for her. I have to say what she didn't: Her parents were negligent and reckless. They didn't adequately protect or prepare their children. They are all lucky to be alive.
One reason this book is popular is that it's so much more than unbelievable stories. She is thoughtful in how she relates her experiences and compares how she interprets them now vs. then. There are beautifully written passages about memories, forming your own ideas, and building up an educated mind from next to nothing. As Tara educates herself and then attends university, her worldview expands dramatically. She says:
Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind.
Gosh it's good. I highly recommend it to those of you who haven't read it. And to those who have, WASN'T THAT SECOND CAR ACCIDENT CRAZY?
Thanks for reading,
Kyle