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Book Review on ‘Educated’

- By: Anuska Acharya

Title: Educated
Author: Tara Westover
Genre: Nonfiction- Memoir, Slice of life
Published date: 2018 A.D

The international best seller Educated by Tara Westover is an unparalleled

memoir. It includes series of events that took place in Tara’s life that contribute to
what she is now. The memoir gives us an opportunity to understand views and
ideas that are very different from ours.

Tara Westover grew up in a very different family than most. The Mormon family
of hers was extremely devout. Her dad believed that the government is an evil
organization. His children never had a birth certificate. In that way, they never
existed... at least in the eyes of the government. The ladies of the house had to be
on their toes 24/7. They were expected to; wear clothes that fully cover their
bodies even in the summer, apply little to no makeup or else slurs would be

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thrown at them by their own family. Suspicions on the government made it
impossible for the children to study in public schools. This
resulted in them getting homeschooled which was a failed attempt. Thus, the
family dropped the idea of pursuing education altogether. The Westover family
didn’t believe in doctors so, they never received professional medical treatment
when a family member needed one. Instead, they resorted to getting treated by the
mother who was a self-proclaimed herbalist. Likewise, Tara was exposed to danger
since young as she started helping her dad with his work in her family scrapyard.
The work put Tara and her siblings at risk resulting in them getting severe injuries.
What’s worse, they never got professional medication for it. Just like putting fuel
on fire, Shawn (one of her brothers) starts using violence on Tara and starts
abusing her which makes things even harder for her at home. In short, everything
that’s ‘normal’ for us wasn’t normal for Tara and her family. After Tyler (her
sibling) attended college, Tara wanted to do the same. So, she started studying all
the material and subjects needed for her to pass the ACT and to be accepted into
college which was definitely a hard feat. But, despite all the challenges and
problems thrown at her, she pulled through and got accepted into BYU with
scholarship. She later received master’s degree from Cambridge University,
fellowship at Harvard University and her thesis titled ‘The Family, Morality and
Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813–1890’ earned her
Doctorate from Cambridge University.

The moment Tara got accepted into college (even though she didn’t have a high
school diploma), was when a new world was opened to her. She saw, learned and
experienced things that the old Tara would never have. All her accomplishments
she achieved were only possible for her because of the choices she made. In this
book, we get to see Tara grow up as a child, a teen and an adult and get to see her
transition from being an ignorant girl to an educated woman.
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My views:

Educated in my opinion is a must read. This was my first time reading a memoir
and it definitely was a good start. This book caught my attention from the moment
I turned the first page of the writing. Though the book had some advanced words,
it wasn’t difficult to understand, I could read it easily. One of the factors that made
me want to keep on reading was curiosity. I was reading and gaining knowledge
about experiences that I never went through and supposedly never thought existed.
Funny thing is, I had to constantly remind myself that these are real people and
they exist.
If I had to confess, I cried about 4 times reading the story.
The first time was when I realized that Tara had to go through abuse. Whenever
Shawn hurt her, she would try to convince herself and the people around her that it
was nothing serious, that everything was alright. The reason I cried was because I
knew that abuse is never right.

The second time tears started rolling through my eyes was when Tara was
seventeen and was with Charles. In his red jeep in the dark, empty parking lot and
he was crying because he had just witnessed Shawn abusing Tara. For others, this
might seem like nothing, but it has its own significance. This hit me quite hard,
Charles could see the things that I as a reader did. If throughout the book I had to
choose a character as my and many other reader’s representative, it would be
Charles. I think, the fact that I could relate to Charles made me quite emotional but
what triggered it more is when I read this line, “What was important to me wasn’t
love or friendship, but my ability to lie convincingly to myself: to believe I was
strong. I could never forgive Charles for knowing I wasn’t.” Tara was in denial
and Charles could see that and I could too. She was trying to convince herself that
she

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could handle things by herself and that she was strong. While being independent is
a good thing, what her seventeen-year-old self should’ve known was that it’s
always okay to get some help from others and that it is alright to not be strong
sometimes. But, it’s not surprising that she would think otherwise considering the
environment she grew up and was living in.

Similarly, the third time I cried was when after confessing to her parents that
Shawn was an abuser and her parents didn’t believe her, she ran towards the
bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. As to why I cried, it was because that
was when she saw no crumbs of her old self in the mirror. I remembered all the
moments she and her family shared and although, I only read less than a quarter of
what her life was like, I knew that as my family is to me, her family is to her, she
loved them. However, she knew that moving forward, all the decision she’ll make
were not of her old self and that would ruin her relationship with her family. She
realized that she could no longer be a part of two worlds.

The fourth and the last time I cried was when I finished reading the book. No
particular reason as to why I cried. It was probably because everything in the book
was captivating. I read a book that taught me so many lessons and it was a good
experience. While we’re on that topic, let me talk a bit ‘bout the lessons I acquired
from this book.

The lessons:

1. Hard work will always earn you success:

 Tara Westover was a strong individual who despite going through harsh
times still pulled through and achieved things that she wanted to achieve.
Let’s take her education journey for example. She never went through
proper school and got proper education in her childhood but still managed to
get into one of
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the top universities in the world while maintaining good grades. How did
she achieve it? Through sheer hard work. Yes, I know nowadays people say
not to do hard work but smart work. While that is not a lie, we have to
accept the fact that hard work always pays off.

2. Never give up:

 If you’ve read Educated, you would know the number of times Tara had to
go against her parent’s beliefs, the society’s beliefs, her sibling’s beliefs and
many times her own beliefs. All those beliefs were inclined to not let her
pursue education. There were numerous times when her thoughts told her to
go back to being what she was at Bucks peak, that she didn’t have to work
so hard to get good grades and good education. She could earn good money
working for her parents. But she fought through all of that and kept on doing
what was needed for her to get that education. She didn’t give up. It is
cliché, but we all know it’s true. So, never give up.

3. Appearances don’t matter what matters is YOU:

 No matter the dresses you wear or amount of makeup you put on your face,
while it definitely alters your physical appearance, it won’t change Your
personality and the kind of person you are. Tara fixated on clothes as the
symbol of why she didn’t, and couldn’t belong. But like I said before,
clothes couldn’t fix what was wrong with her. Something had already rotted
on the inside. The thing Dr. Kerry said to Tara before leaving the chapel, left
a huge impression on me.
“The most powerful determinant of who you are is inside you.” he said.
“Professor Steinberg says this is Pygmalion. Think of the story, Tara.” He
 paused, his eyes fierce, his voice piercing. “She was just a cockney in a nice
dress. Until she believed in herself. Then it didn’t matter what dress she
wore.”
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4. Education is never a bad thing:

 Education is so powerful that it can change the whole world. This is not all
talk, it’s true. An educated mind can figure out what’s right from wrong. It
can change you into a new person who is smarter and better than your
previous self. An educated person sees the world in a different perspective
than those who are uneducated. Who can be a better example than Tara
herself? Before education, she was ignorant, thought everything her parents
told her was the only truth, thought abuse was alright etc. Now after
education, she is educated, knows that all that her parents told her is not
always true and she certainly is aware that abuse is not right.

This book made me emotional, flabbergasted, smile, cry, laugh at times, curious
for more and nervous, but also excited. Educated is an example of what inspiration
is like. It shows that there is so much more you can do with your life until the day
you die. Writing book reviews is not my cup of tea but reading this book made me
want to write it seriously, which in my opinion proves that Educated is interesting.
I would highly recommend this book to my friends who’re the same age as me,
students like me, teachers out there, people who can’t move on with their life,
those who think they are not worth anything and anyone who simply wants a good
read. This is the only sentence I can think of to end this review of mine. As a
reader, I am satisfied.

THANKYOU