Popular non-fiction is not something that I read often. Perhaps it’s because I have very niche interests when it comes to non-fiction or whether I just prefer fiction, but this book got really popular when it first came out, so I bought a copy. It sat on my shelf for a year and I finished it just last month. It is rare of me to be gripped by creative non-fiction, but I read this in three sittings and each time I was loathed to put it down. Tara Westover writes frankly about her experiences and is not afraid of the ‘transformative power of education’ that is the focus of the book.
The concept of the book is this: Tara Westover, the youngest child of the Westover family of Utah, is born to a Mormon father and mother who reject the government, medicine and ‘gentiles’, including other members of their faith. Her father has spent much of his life prepping for the Second Coming of Jesus and the accompanying end of days. Her mother is a midwife and herbalist healer. Her brothers work on her father’s scrapyard at the base of the mountain where they built their home. At the point at which she goes to Brigham Young University (BYU) aged 17, she has never had a formal education, and her birth certificate had only been issued eight years previously.
The premise of the book is how education – Westover now has a BA, a master’s and PhD from BYU, Cambridge and Harvard – can change lives and open up the mind to new experiences. Her experiences of being shunned by her family for reporting abuse and of defying her father to pursue an education are a stark contrast to those of her family, and the book has been publically denounced by most of her relatives.
I was nervous most of the way through this book. I know it is my particular world view that makes me think this way, but I felt Westover’s need to get out of her family situation and get her education. This book is definitely one for anyone who values their education and wants to see schooling from a different angle, from someone who had to fight for the knowledge and understanding of the world that she has.
The book has met with criticism from people who doubt Westover’s story. Not that it happened, but the validity of some of the more violent aspects or parts that are so far removed from everyday experience. I did read some parts and go ‘how was that allowed to happen’, but I question why someone would doubt someone’s life story in this way. Things like this do happen and it opened up my mind to someone who hasn’t had easy access to education and, instead of being supported by her family, had to go against them to get where she is now.
What interested me most about Educated is that Westover retained her Mormon beliefs whilst studying, although some parts fell away over time. Several times at BYU, she considers that her father is right and she ought to leave. I have trouble sometimes considering that she could still have these beliefs whilst studying, and I am glad that I read this book, mostly for this reason. Educated might be the story of a woman overcoming barriers to receive an education, but it challenges preconceptions that I have held for a long time as well.
Read With Me 