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 "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. Summary. The memoir is told in three parts. The first part describes Westover's life beginning on Buck's Peak, a mountain located in rural Idaho, until her acceptance into Brigham Young University (BYU). Her parents, Gene and Faye Westover (pseudonyms) lived 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. Westover's mother undertook most of the children's loose homeschooling and her father taught the children the "rhythms of the mountain". Tara's attempts to attend school or seek other normality in her life were denied by her father. Gene becomes depressed when his prophecies about the Y2K apocalypse did not occur. When Tara suffers a neck injury from a car accident, her father refused to take her to the hospital for treatment. Tara's estranged brother Shawn helped her and  the two initially grew closer. However, Shawn started physically abusing her after she became close to Charles, a boy she met while performing in theater. Another of Tara's brothers, Tyler, learned of the abuse and encouraged her to leave home and take the ACT to be able to apply to Brigham Young University. Westover was later 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 King's College, Cambridge. She received financial awards that allowed her to attend Cambridge. 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. Later, Tara also reconnects with Charles, but feels like she cannot act romantically towards him because of her conservative upbringing. She also questions the abuse she endured from her father and Shawn, which results in her breaking off her relationship with  Charles. Westover realizes that she no longer feels at home in Idaho, and worries that her father may have bipolar disorder. She cuts ties with him, but reconnects after he expresses interest in her life at school. After Shawn marries Emily, a young woman he was dating, Tara worries about Emily who previously expressed fear of Shawn. Interested in history and politics, Westover confides to one of her professors about her family. Her professor encourages her to apply for the study abroad program at the University of Cambridge. After arriving at King's College, Tara is assigned to work with  Professor Jonathan Steinberg. Both of her professors encourage her to attend graduate school. Westover applies for and wins the Gates Scholarship. She also makes a temporary truce with her father, after the two had a falling out over how she spoke about her past to local news outlets as well as her decision to attend school in England. In Part three, Westover writes about her life in Cambridge and completing her PhD. She takes steps to be part of the world, including getting immunized for vaccinations her family rejected. She occasionally returns to Idaho where she learns that Shawn is  still abusing Emily. Her sister, Audrey, learned about Shawn's behavior, but their mother did not believe her. Eventually, Tara and her mother take up email correspondence. During this period, her mother suggests that Gene is mentally ill and writes about how they plan to get Shawn the help he needs. On another trip home, Shawn briefly shows signs of change, but later accuses Audrey of lying about his abusive behavior and threatens to kill her. Gene and Faye do not take Tara seriously when she tells them about Shawn's threat. Tara encounters Shawn with a bloody knife on  another visit home. Terrified, Tara lies and claims that her father lied about Shawn's treatment to Audrey. Later, she realizes that her mother had never been on her or Audrey's side. After returning to England, Shawn threatens her life. Audrey also cuts ties with Tara, claiming she is under Satan's control. Westover then begins graduate school at Harvard and her parents briefly visit and try to convince her to come home. After returning home again, Westover discovers that an ex-girlfriend of Shawn's wrote to her mother that she was delusional and demonizing her brother. Westover  returns to Harvard and eventually England. After suffering panic attacks, she ends contact with her parents for a year in an effort to recover. She struggles in her studies, but is encouraged by 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. At the end of the memoir, Tara is in touch with only a few family members  and comes to accept that she needs to be away from the mountain. Background. Of her upbringing, Westover has said, "My father created our reality in a really meaningful way because we were so isolated. He would say these things about public education and doctors and the government and we didn't know any better. We didn't go to school so as far as we knew the world was exactly the way our father described it." Westover got her undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University and her PhD at Cambridge. Westover decided to write the book after she confronted  her parents about her brother's abuse, and the resulting conflict led to her becoming estranged from some members of her family. She began searching for stories to help her understand what had happened. In 2018, she told "The New York Times", "I wrote the book I wished I could have given to myself when I was losing my family. When I was going through that experience, I became aware of how important stories are in telling us how to live — how we should feel, when we should feel proud, when we should feel ashamed. I was losing my family , and it seemed to me that there were no stories for that — no stories about what to do when loyalty to your family was somehow in conflict with loyalty to yourself. And forgiveness. I wanted a story about forgiveness that did not conflate forgiveness with reconciliation, or did not treat reconciliation as the highest form of forgiveness. In my life, I knew the two might always be separate. I didn't know if I would ever reconcile with my family, and I needed to believe that I could forgive, regardless." Westover has said that she set out to explore the  complexity of difficult family relationships. In an interview with "The Irish Times", she said, "You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them, and you can miss someone every day and still be glad they're not in your life." Her parents' attorney has said that "Her parents raised their family in what Tara described as an extremist mindset, but what they felt was self-sufficiency." They maintain that there is only a "little germ of truth" in her book. Their attorney said Westover's parents were hurt that Westover would write a book that slanders her  upbringing and that she would accuse her brother [Shawn] of the abuse described. Westover has not responded directly to these claims, but per the book's acknowledgements, prior to publication it was professionally fact-checked by Ben Phelan of "This American Life" and "GQ". Reception. "Educated" was an instant #1 "New York Times" bestseller, and was positively reviewed by the "New York Times", "The Atlantic Monthly", "USA Today", "Vogue", and "The Economist", among others. The book was also nominated for a number of national awards, including the "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and  two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. "Educated" spent more than two years in hardcover on the "New York Times" bestseller list and is being translated into 45 languages. The "New York Times" ranked "Educated" as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018,  and The American Booksellers Association named "Educated" the Nonfiction Book of the Year. As of December 2020, the book had sold more than 6 million copies. Awards and recognition. Westover's book earned her several awards and accolades: