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nerdie_kitten's review against another edition
5.0
"You could call this selfhood many things Transformation, metamorphosis, Falsity, betrayal. I call it an education. "
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This closing line would always stay with me. If I would have to describe it I would say 'Empowering '. If you stuck in the time of pandemic and think that your life is so hard. Better read this book. I bet it will change your perspective towards life or even education.
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This closing line would always stay with me. If I would have to describe it I would say 'Empowering '. If you stuck in the time of pandemic and think that your life is so hard. Better read this book. I bet it will change your perspective towards life or even education.
csnurr's review against another edition
3.0
This left me feeling icky in a way that is hard to describe. I’m glad she was able to escape her fundamentalist roots but I wish she wouldn’t boil her father’s insanity down to just an untreated mental illness when it’s clear none of the family’s fundamental beliefs would be “fixed” by an SSRI.
I also could not stop thinking throughout this book that it’s highly likely none of her opportunities would have happened if she was not a white woman and she never acknowledges that beyond a quick passage about learning who MLK was and realizing the N-word was not a hilarious nickname from her psychopath brother.
I also could not stop thinking throughout this book that it’s highly likely none of her opportunities would have happened if she was not a white woman and she never acknowledges that beyond a quick passage about learning who MLK was and realizing the N-word was not a hilarious nickname from her psychopath brother.
yazzzmin's review against another edition
5.0
A haunting tale of family, love and violence – and one's search for freedom, and its cost.
Especially important I found how Tara talked about her struggle to differentiate herself from her father's opinion on the world and herself, and how she learned to distance herself from his voice and gained her own.
Excellent work. I am in awe.
Especially important I found how Tara talked about her struggle to differentiate herself from her father's opinion on the world and herself, and how she learned to distance herself from his voice and gained her own.
Excellent work. I am in awe.
deannamartin113's review against another edition
5.0
Too many people are focusing on the "homeschool" aspect of this. By my reading of this story, these kids were not homeschooled, they educated themselves when and if they desired to have an education. This is why three of them have PhD's and the other four don't even have a high school diploma or an equivalent. I do not think this will do any damage to homeschoolers. Her father and mother are fringe, fundamentalist preppers, with a skewed view of love.
In all, I think so many people and organizations failed Tara. Her parents, her siblings, her aunts and uncles, her church (if you can really call it that), the State of Idaho social services and police services. I homeschool my children. My eldest daughter went to college on a full tuition academic scholarship. We live in one of the "strictest" states to homeschool, but I'm glad for the accountability. I have never had a problem with the school district. I have never had a problem with our evaluator. My desire is to make sure my children have the best education. Tara's parents just wanted to keep their children away from some Government Boogey Man of her father's delusions, brought to life through his fundamental belief system.
The real story here is the sanctioned abuse in the name of a "religion". As I continued to read the book, I realized that Tara was writing the book as proof of her reality, her version of events. Since finishing the book, I have watched several interviews she has given. She seems sincere in saying that she loves her family, but being estranged from them is the only way forward for her. I had to make a similar decision with my family. She said one thing in an interview that it is hard for people who haven't gone through an estrangement because of abuse find hard to fathom - "forgiveness is not reconciliation". We can forgive people for things they've done and said, but that doesn't mean we must give them the right to continue to do it.
Further, I think the damage this does to Mormonism is subtle, but it is there. I don't think it matters if you are a fundamental Mormon or a "gentile" Mormon, your view of women is that of a subjective gender. A woman belongs at home, in the kitchen, raising babies - this is the will of the Lord! Plus, "the church had ended the temporal practice of polygamy in 1890, but it had never recanted the doctrine". I found this shocking - call me sheltered! A paragraph a page later reads a little like catechism - "Mark was still waiting. Then he gave up and mumbled the words I was supposed to say, that he didn't understand fully, but that he knew polygamy was a principle from God."
I know that her parents have hired an attorney and are telling people to read her memoir with a grain of salt. Why would they do that if they were not afraid of what she's saying? I found her words to be sincere and transparent. I don't believe she has any agenda except to be a healthy human being and writing this book is helping her do that. It's not hard to figure out who her parents are, even with the name changes; or what her mother's essential oils company is. It also won't be too hard to figure out who the older, abusive brother is. I just hope the local authorities keep an eye on him and he is taken into custody if he hurts someone else.
In all, I think so many people and organizations failed Tara. Her parents, her siblings, her aunts and uncles, her church (if you can really call it that), the State of Idaho social services and police services. I homeschool my children. My eldest daughter went to college on a full tuition academic scholarship. We live in one of the "strictest" states to homeschool, but I'm glad for the accountability. I have never had a problem with the school district. I have never had a problem with our evaluator. My desire is to make sure my children have the best education. Tara's parents just wanted to keep their children away from some Government Boogey Man of her father's delusions, brought to life through his fundamental belief system.
The real story here is the sanctioned abuse in the name of a "religion". As I continued to read the book, I realized that Tara was writing the book as proof of her reality, her version of events. Since finishing the book, I have watched several interviews she has given. She seems sincere in saying that she loves her family, but being estranged from them is the only way forward for her. I had to make a similar decision with my family. She said one thing in an interview that it is hard for people who haven't gone through an estrangement because of abuse find hard to fathom - "forgiveness is not reconciliation". We can forgive people for things they've done and said, but that doesn't mean we must give them the right to continue to do it.
Further, I think the damage this does to Mormonism is subtle, but it is there. I don't think it matters if you are a fundamental Mormon or a "gentile" Mormon, your view of women is that of a subjective gender. A woman belongs at home, in the kitchen, raising babies - this is the will of the Lord! Plus, "the church had ended the temporal practice of polygamy in 1890, but it had never recanted the doctrine". I found this shocking - call me sheltered! A paragraph a page later reads a little like catechism - "Mark was still waiting. Then he gave up and mumbled the words I was supposed to say, that he didn't understand fully, but that he knew polygamy was a principle from God."
I know that her parents have hired an attorney and are telling people to read her memoir with a grain of salt. Why would they do that if they were not afraid of what she's saying? I found her words to be sincere and transparent. I don't believe she has any agenda except to be a healthy human being and writing this book is helping her do that. It's not hard to figure out who her parents are, even with the name changes; or what her mother's essential oils company is. It also won't be too hard to figure out who the older, abusive brother is. I just hope the local authorities keep an eye on him and he is taken into custody if he hurts someone else.
oxnard_montalvo's review against another edition
I honestly just thought this was a memoir about being homeschooled before going into the formal education system; I was prepared for comparisons between the culture of the two systems and whacky anecdotes.... which is not what this book is about.
Yeah. Unprepared for it.
Yeah. Unprepared for it.
vampiresreadtoo's review against another edition
5.0
This book was so hard to read at times but also very emotional, the way she reconstructed herself after so much abuse and trauma is unbelievable. Tara is the strongest person I ever met and she became a real role model to me what a queen
tashanslone's review against another edition
5.0
“Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.”
― Tara Westover, Educated
This book is powerful. It shines on and evaluates in depth the culture that berates us today. How mental illness can persuade us to perceive the world through different lenses. Also, it goes into depth about the influences our family has on our perception. I took many similarities from this book, albeit more subdued. It’s astonishing to me that we still live in a society that this still happening.
― Tara Westover, Educated
This book is powerful. It shines on and evaluates in depth the culture that berates us today. How mental illness can persuade us to perceive the world through different lenses. Also, it goes into depth about the influences our family has on our perception. I took many similarities from this book, albeit more subdued. It’s astonishing to me that we still live in a society that this still happening.
dabu8712's review against another edition
2.0
This book is a real rollercoaster ride with every gutting event being triumphed by the next one. The book is not bad in any way, yet, I get a feeling that the editor of the book (or maybe Tara Westover herself) reduced the reflective parts of the story and instead highlighted the more sensational parts.
Listening to Tara’s reflections about her upbringing outside of the system, and her transition to a new “better” life is the real strength of the book. One can only imagine how many individuals who have had similar upbringings with more disastrous outcomes, and I wished throughout the book that Tara would have kept reflecting more about this transition of getting educated rather than constantly changing the focus back to extraordinary stories. I do, by all means, understand and respect why Tara is in need to to dwell on her relation to her family and her past to the extent she does, but by the end of the book I was weary with all the freakshow accidents and abusive stories that I had to force myself to finish the book.
In contrast to other biographies I have read, I appreciate that Tara disclaims (perhaps a bit too often) that this is her testament and not an objective story. It feels a tad weird to rate a biography as it feels as if you judge someone’s life. Rather than rating Tara’s life testimony, my rating reflects the language and the editorial work made of the book and a rating of 2.5 is perhaps more just than a pure 2.
Listening to Tara’s reflections about her upbringing outside of the system, and her transition to a new “better” life is the real strength of the book. One can only imagine how many individuals who have had similar upbringings with more disastrous outcomes, and I wished throughout the book that Tara would have kept reflecting more about this transition of getting educated rather than constantly changing the focus back to extraordinary stories. I do, by all means, understand and respect why Tara is in need to to dwell on her relation to her family and her past to the extent she does, but by the end of the book I was weary with all the freakshow accidents and abusive stories that I had to force myself to finish the book.
In contrast to other biographies I have read, I appreciate that Tara disclaims (perhaps a bit too often) that this is her testament and not an objective story. It feels a tad weird to rate a biography as it feels as if you judge someone’s life. Rather than rating Tara’s life testimony, my rating reflects the language and the editorial work made of the book and a rating of 2.5 is perhaps more just than a pure 2.