Educated (book)

Educated (2018) is a memoir by the American author Tara Westover. Westover recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college, and emphasizes the importance of education in enlarging her world. She details her journey from her isolated life in the mountains of Idaho to completing a PhD program in history at Cambridge University. She started college at the age of 17 having had no formal education. She explores her struggle to reconcile her desire to learn with the world she inhabited with her father.

As of the September 13, 2020 issue of The New York Times, the book had spent 132 consecutive weeks on the Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list. It won a 2019 Alex Award and was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Synopsis:

The memoir is told in three parts. The first part describes Westover's life from her birth on Buck's Peak, a mountain in rural Idaho, until she was accepted at Brigham Young University (BYU). Her parents, Gene and Faye Westover (pseudonyms) had decided to live in isolation. Her father was paranoid about hospitals, the public school system, and the government, due in part to the 1992 events of Ruby Ridge. The mother undertook most of the children's very loose homeschooling. Their father taught the children the "rhythms of the mountain". Tara describes sneaking away to visit her paternal grandparents. Although her mother received a serious brain injury, her father refused to take her to a hospital for treatment.

Tara's attempts to attend school or seek other normality in her life were denied by her father. He became depressed when the Y2K apocalypse did not occur. When Tara suffered a neck injury from a car accident, he refused to take her to the hospital. Her estranged brother Shawn helped her with that, and the two initially grow closer. But Shawn started physically abusing her after she began to grow close to Charles, a boy she met while performing in theater. Her brother, Tyler, learned of the abuse. He encouraged her to leave home, and to take the ACT in order to apply to Brigham Young University. Westover was admitted to BYU and given a scholarship. She and Shawn became close again after he stood up to their father on her behalf. When Shawn has a serious motorcycle accident, she takes him to the hospital.

Part two covers Westover's studies at BYU and her opportunity to study at King's College, Cambridge and receives financial awards that will allow her to remain there. She describes the stress she felt from the pressure of having to maintain her grades in order to keep her scholarship, as well as the issues she runs into due to her alienation from the outside world and lack of formal schooling. She manages to get high enough grades to receive a half-scholarship and Westover reconnects with Charles, with whom she begins a relationship that she cannot act romantically/physically upon because of her conservative upbringing. She also begins to question the abuse she continues to receive from both her father and Shawn, abuse that results in breaking off her relationship with Charles. Meanwhile Shawn begins to date a younger girl, Emily. Westover discovers that one of her teeth is rotting, the pain from which causes her to fall behind in school. She initially refuses any financial assistance from her church and suggestions that she apply for government assistance but later chooses to seek out assistance after returning to Buck's Peak for Christmas.

Westover realizes that she no longer feels at home at Buck's Peak; she worries that her father may have bipolar disorder. She cuts ties but reconnect after he expresses interest in her life at school. Shawn marries Emily, and Westover worries because the younger woman has expressed fear of her brother. Interested in history and politics, Westover confides to one of her professors about her family. Dr. Kerry encourages her to apply for the study abroad program at the University of Cambridge. After arriving at King's College, Westover is assigned to work with Professor Jonathan Steinberg. Both he and Kerry encourage her to go to graduate school at either Cambridge or Harvard. Steinberg offers to pay her fees at Cambridge. Westover applies for and wins the Gates Scholarship. She also makes a temporary truce with her father, as the two had a falling out over how she spoke about her past to local newspapers and news outlets and her decision to go to school in England. He worries about her being too far from family help.

In Part three, Westover writes about her life in Cambridge and after completing her PhD. She makes more steps into the world, getting all the vaccinations her family rejected. She occasionally returns to Buck's Peak, where she learns that Shawn is still abusing Emily. Her sister Audrey learned of this, but their mother did not believe her account. Westover and her mother take up email correspondence, and her mother suggests that her father has a mental illness. She says the parents will get help for Shawn. On another trip, Shawn briefly shows signs of change, but later accuses Audrey of lying about abuse and threatening to kill her. Westover's parents do not take her seriously when telling of this threat.

She meets Shawn brings with him a bloody knife that Westover later discovers he used to kill his family's dog while his son watched. Terrified of what he would do, Westover lies and claims that her father lied about what was said. She also later realizes that her mother had never been on her or Audrey's side. After returning to England, Shawn makes a threat to Westover's life and her parents begin to deny the existence of the knife. Her sister Audrey also cuts Tara out of her life, as she is going to forgive Shawn. She claims that Westover was being controlled by Satan, and the young woman feels as if she has lost her whole family. She begins graduate school at Harvard and her parents briefly visit her, trying to pull her back.

She becomes depressed and returns to Buck's Peak. Once there she discovers a betrayal by one of Shawn's ex-girlfriends, whom she had thought supported her when she discussed her brother's abuse. The young woman instead had written to Westover's mother that Westover was being delusional and demonizing Shawn.

Westover returns to Harvard and eventually returns to England. After suffering panic attacks, she tells her parents she is ending contact for a year until she can recover. She struggles in her studies, but is encouraged by supportive emails from her brother Tyler. She successfully completes her PhD. Years later Westover returns to Idaho for her maternal grandmother's funeral. She is reunited with Tyler and his wife, as well two maternal aunts. She is also reunited with her siblings, most of whom still take their father and Shawn's side. Westover says at the end of her memoir that she is in touch with only a few of her family. She has finally accepted her need to be away from the mountain.