The Book Everyone Should Read

Allie Bernstein, 27

There is one book that I profusely recommend to all readers, regardless of their age, gender, genre preference, and more. It is called Educated, written by a woman named Tara Westover. I first read this book 6 years ago, in 2018 (when it first came out), when I was only 10 years-old. Ever since, I have re-read Educated once a year. Even as I am on my 7th read of the book, I take away new lessons and details each time. At 10 years-old, I was not able to fully appreciate the literary genius that Westover is, and certainly not capable of understanding the complex dynamics and storylines that carried the plot. Nevertheless, I was enchanted by this big book with the pencil cover. I stole it from my mother’s bedside table and spent all night reading it, unable to put the story down. I truly believe that after completing Westover’s memoir, my bubbled perspective on life had popped, and I began to understand a deeper part of society. Beyond its gripping narrative, this memoir serves as a wake-up call about the privileges and barriers surrounding education and personal freedom. Anyone who is interested in expanding their knowledge of the grittier parts of America should invest in reading Educated.

Tara Westover is currently 38 years-old and was born in the very rural area of Clifton, Idaho. Growing up in a town with a population under 500 people, her early childhood centered around her father’s extremist Mormon beliefs of distrusting the government, modern medicine, and education. While she lived under her parents’ roof, the only form of education she received was Val Westover’s (her father) homeschooling, mostly learning from religious texts and working in Val's junkyard. Tara survived physical labor, abuse, sexism, isolation, and a deep-seated fear of the outside world due the extreme way she was raised. In Educated, Tara stated, “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.” Despite the immense adversity Tara had to work through, she managed to become an educated woman. Her older brother Tyler rebelled and attended Brigham Young University, a school that did not closely check the education status of homeschooled children. She borrowed his textbooks and began teaching herself basic subjects. After teaching herself all she was able to, she took the ACT multiple times until she scored high enough to attend BYU. However, it was not a simple journey after her admittance. She never had a birth certificate (given her parents dislike of the government, and belief that the apocalypse would come soon enough anyways), and had to prove that she existed to the government. In the college classroom, she had never heard of events like the Holocaust or people like Martin Luther King, making her feel behind her classmates and humiliated to know so little. Thankfully, she persevered, and her professors recognized her talent. They encouraged her to pursue further education, and with their support, she earned prestigious scholarships. With the scholarship money, Tara went onto the University of Cambridge where she earned her Masters, then a PHD in history.

At this point in her life, Tara was certainly intelligent, and had seen life outside of her father’s world. However, as the youngest of 7 children, she was targeted as the black sheep of her family. The most interesting relationship to me in the entire story was Tara’s complex and depressing dynamic with her oldest brother, Travis. He physically abused both Tara and her sister Valaree when they were children, in order to show his dominance and control. After violent outbursts, he would sometimes apologize, creating a confusing emotional cycle for Tara. However, his apologies could never fully fix his ‘mistakes’, especially when he threatened to murder Tara whenever he felt disrespected by her. Tara’s parents refused to acknowledge any poor behavior and would defend Travis’s actions. She finally stood up for herself and confronted the entire family about Travis and his abuse, and when the family sided with Travis, she was officially estranged from them. I find this relationship so intriguing, because it perfectly displays how emotional abuse ties into physical abuse, creating a difficult scenario to escape.

I personally learned so much from reading about Tara’s family and the obscure lifestyle they lived. My main takeaway was that instability and fearfulness can almost always be overruled by education. After reading this book, I realized something very important: If someone from one of the most rural parts of the United States, with little to no support from her family, can achieve the highest form of education, then why shouldn’t I be able to do so as well? Sometimes when I feel stressed about school and classwork, remembering Tara’s story serves as a reminder of how lucky I am to be in school, and to be given the opportunity to learn. You can purchase Educated here: https://www.amazon.com/Educated-Memoir-Tara-Westover/dp/0399590501 or at y

our local bookstore/library.