Educated by Tara Westover

My library book club's August read was Tara Westover's best-selling, critically acclaimed memoir Educated.

Westover's life makes for page-turning reading, but the abuses she suffered in the hands of her family actually gave me nightmares. Her mentally ill father's paranoid beliefs ruled the family. As Mormons, her mother submitted to her husband's authority. The parents would not send their children to public school and were inept at homeschooling, so the kids educated themselves. It was lucky they even survived as the father also feared the medical establishment and even the most horrendous of accidents were self-treated.

Westover can write and she gave her life story a narrative arc, but I was not glad to have read this book. I was upset by what most of us would consider the mistreatment of the children. I wondered if Westover's story would be held as an example of how anyone can pull themselves up from ignorance and poverty to become a best-selling novelist with a Ph.D.,  justifying blame on those who are mired in poverty and dead-end lives. As a mother who homeschooled our son from seventh grade through high school graduation, with a rigorous and thoughtful education plan, I didn't care for the Westover's dad using his daughter's success as a vindication of his non-schooling homeschooling.

What I did admire was Westover's honest portrayal of her struggle to grow and find her own life without losing her family and how the family dynamics kept her tethered to her past. It is hard enough to leave one's faith community and family in our self-actualization journey. Westover's constricted, narrow, world and her father's radical Mormonism was all she knew and it was hard to assimilate into mainstream Mormonism. Friends, boyfriends, professors, and finally mental health counseling supported Westover on her journey. Her success was rooted in her native intelligence and desire to learn, but she was helped by many along the way.

Our book club had a terrific discussion that could have gone on past our designated hour. The book engaged us on an emotional level, some repulsed, some found it reflected experiences in their own lives, and some thought Westover's story was one of hope and success.