Educated
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of her older brothers became violent. She had never seen a doctor, never taken an exam, and her father's paranoid beliefs kept her world confined to the harsh slopes of Buck's Peak.
Then, at seventeen, Tara made a bold decision. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her across oceans and continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University, where she earned a PhD in history.
But as her world expanded, the bonds with her family fractured. Tara's journey is a powerful exploration of what it means to choose education and self-invention over the life you were born into. It's a story of fierce family loyalty and the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties.
This unforgettable memoir asks profound questions about the power of education to open eyes and change lives. It's about the struggle to reconcile where you come from with who you want to become. Tara's story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, a testament to the human spirit's capacity for transformation and the courage it takes to forge your own path.
Interesting Facts
No Birth Certificate Until Nine: Tara Westover didn't receive a birth certificate until she was nine years old, meaning she officially didn't exist according to the state of Idaho and the federal government for nearly a decade of her life. Can you imagine the feeling of receiving your first legal proof of personhood as a child?
First Classroom at Seventeen: Picture this: Westover was seventeen years old when she first set foot in a classroom. That's the age when most teens are thinking about prom and college applications, but for her, it was the very beginning of formal education!
Asked About the Holocaust: In one of her first college lectures at Brigham Young University, Westover raised her hand and asked what the Holocaust was because she had never heard of it. This stunning moment reveals just how isolated her upbringing truly was.
Instant Number One Bestseller: Educated debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and remained there in hardcover for more than two years. The book has now sold over 8 million copies and been translated into 45 to 49 languages, depending on the most recent count.
Three Siblings Earned PhDs: Despite their unconventional upbringing, three of the seven Westover children went on to earn doctoral degrees. That's an astounding 42 percent of the family achieving the highest level of academic education!
Gates Cambridge Scholar: After graduating magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2008, Westover won a prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where she earned her PhD in intellectual history in 2014.
Obama and Gates Loved It: Barack Obama included Educated on his annual reading list, calling it remarkable, while Bill Gates listed it as one of his favorite books of the year, saying it's even better than you've heard.
Most Checked Out Book: In August 2019, Educated had been checked out more frequently than any other book through all 88 branches of the New York Public Library. It was also voted the number one Library Reads pick by American librarians.
Time's 100 Most Influential: For her staggering impact through this memoir, Time Magazine named Westover one of the 100 most influential people of 2019. She was also awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden in 2023.
132 Weeks on Bestseller List: By September 2020, The New York Times reported that Educated had spent 132 consecutive weeks on the Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list. The book won the 2019 Alex Award and was a finalist for numerous prestigious awards.
Family Disputes the Story: Through their attorney, Westover's family has disputed some elements of the book, saying it should be read with a grain of salt. Her mother later published her own book called Educating that provides her perspective on the events described in Educated.
Taught Herself Algebra: With no formal education, Westover taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to pass the ACT college entrance exam and gain admission to Brigham Young University, where she initially struggled but eventually thrived in her studies.
Quotes
"You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them," she says now. "You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life." - Tara Westover
"My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs." - Tara Westover
"It's strange how you give the people you love so much power over you." - Tara Westover
"We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell" - Tara Westover
"Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind." - Tara Westover
"I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money." - Tara Westover
"The decisions I made after that moment were not the ones she would have made. They were the choices of a changed person, a new self. You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education" - Tara Westover
"The skill I was learning was a crucial one, the patience to read things I could not yet understand." - Tara Westover
"Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure." - Tara Westover
"Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were." - Tara Westover
"An education is not so much about making a living as making a person." - Tara Westover
"To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else's." - Tara Westover
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