Educated - Tara Westover - 2018

 

Well i am not even sure where to begin on this one. There is a lot going on in this book. This is nonfiction. It is about 12 hours on audio, so not too long. 

The author did not read it. The audio person did a great job, except I wonder if they consult with the author while they record. Sometimes I thought the audio person sounded angry and I was like “well is the author this angry too?” lol. Anyways I am still undecided as to whether audio books are so good. There are a lot of words in this book I would have like to see written so I could learn how to spell them.

Anyways, let’s dive in…..

So I think this is probably the new #9 on the list although maybe Scott will read it sometime so we can discuss. I would say Keidis’s (Anthony Keidis from Scar Tissue) life was a bit more crazy, but Tara’s life was pretty strange. 

I will try not to give too much away, but the essential premise of the book is that 7 kids grow up as Mormons on a mountain in Idaho. None of them go to school. Their dad speaks to God and thinks the end of the world is coming. He also believes the Illuminati are going to take over the world and that the federal government is evil. They do not believe in modern medicine (aspirin, doctors, hospitals, immunizations etc.) 

Essentially, the rest of the family falls in line behind the father. They work for him in the junkyard and building barns. They listen to him “testify.” They do what he says for the most part. 

One problem is he makes some really weird and harmful decisions on numerous occasions. One such decision is deciding to drive the family through a white out (on the way back from vacation) in the middle of the night at 60 miles an hour because the angels are with them. Another problem is that due to no education/school, the kids have little future and know nothing about interacting with others or the world in general. He is not physically abusive which is good; he just believes his world view is right. Therefore another problem is that he strains relations with some of his kids because he is delusional. The ones who “get out” end up with emotional trauma due to his weird parenting.  

The other problem is Tara’s older brother is somewhat abusive (verbally and physically), however the parents do not see it this way. Eventually, they disown Tara regarding her older brother because they say Lucifer has taken over her soul. It is like this: you, me and Tara see a blue sky. Tara’s father and mother see a red sky (because they are crazy) and tell you with 100% earnestness that the sky is red. Now how are you supposed to logically interact with people like this??? Jajaja I am not sure and Tara is not sure either.  

Tara goes to college (this part is amazing) but struggles basically for the next 10 years to be her father’s daughter as well as a normal member of society. On many occasions, she has mental breakdowns due to her weird upbringing and her struggle to determine what type of relationship to maintain with her family and how to achieve that. 

The question I kept asking while reading this was “why the hell do you keep going home to the crazy people?” In fairness she was young, that is her family, and she grew up brainwashed basically, so I kind of get why she kept trying to be a part of her family. 

Finally, and perhaps I should become a Mormon zealot because of this, her parents actually become really rich due to their strange beliefs. I do not really know what to think about this part. Maybe God really was on their side. Coach Lou always used to say “it’s better to be lucky than good.” This part is extremely ironic, because the average person would call them crazy, and yet their business made a lot more money than a lot of “sane” people. 

Not sure if my review does the book justice (I tried not to give away too much), but anyways if you want a kooky memoir this is it. This book is hard to read at times, because some of the stuff that happens is just straight up physically painful and you will be thinking “ouch that must have hurt.”

Page it for sure and broaden your perspective. The author was born in 1986 so this book takes place in modern times and was published just 7 years ago. Actually, I assume all of the characters in the memoir are still alive, which is actually somewhat scary (i did not look this up but they could be alive still).   

Anyways shout out to Gram and chat gpt for the recommendation! And Scott add to your list! Peace!

*One more thing: we read a lot of memoirs. I am going to say that memoirs should basically be called fiction. I am not specifically calling out this one, but I simply do not believe that people’s memories are so good (often written years after the events and through tons of trauma and/or other life events). So feel free to disagree here, but unless you have journal entries (Tara does have some) or statistics (like tennis match scores from “Open”) I am going to say that memoirs are not to be blindly trusted. Ok, now peace!