She was gaslighted by her entire family, and also by the ones she trusted the most. No wonder she had so much self doubt. Brave of her to share her story

As someone with very similar parents and upbringing to Tara, I could relate to almost all of her memoir. Some of the crazy stuff is completely believable if you’ve also had a unconventional and abusive childhood.

I lived less than fifty miles from Ruby Ridge during the Randy Weaver crisis. I found this work completely plausible and believe this is Tara's true history

Reading Tyler's review it is glaringly obvious that his experience with his parents as a male was far different than Tara's as a female. The father in this family clearly felt women lowly and beneath men. He keeps his own wife mostly subservient to him so why would Tyler or anyone else think he would see college for Tara as important as he did for Tyler. And let's not forget that this horrible man (the father) encouraged Tyler's education to help himself and his own business, not to benefit his son directly. For the most part, this is a horrible family, especially that mother who did nothing, NOTHING, to protect her children from each other and that awful father.

I just finished it, and loved it. I thought Westover did a good job of expressing her doubts about details, revealing gaps in her memory, moments of paraphrasing, etc. The journals she kept for years help to make her memory more plausible, but as you say, it's one person's experience, and we see many instances in the book of people interpreting things differently. That said, I think Westover honestly wanted to tell her story truthfully, and it's her storytelling and editing abilities, not falsehoods, that make it such a gripping book.

It's important to remember that the Amazon review was written by her brother. Males, even ones that have a conflict with the overall power-system still had more privilege and can't see what is going on for women.. Girls raised within families and religions with strong patriarchal system are often abused and she was the youngest, the one with the least power to fight back. Mothers enable to keep themselves safe. How do I know this. Guess.

I'm a little late to this party. I just finished Educated and thought it was astonishingly good. She is estranged from many members of her family, so it is not surprising that they contest what she has written. It is interesting to note that even though she pursued formal education despite objections from her parents, they were still supportive. They were supportive until she made the accusations of abuse against her brother. I find her relationship with Shawn very believable. Her family has little choice but to call her a liar..because to accept her truth means they were aware of the abuse and did nothing to stop it. By the way, for those who haven't read it, she notes rather frequently that her memories may not be exact and that when possible she asked others for their recollections of the events, and they didn't agree with each other. One final thing, to those of you skeptical of a nonschooled person earning a Ph.D, nonschooled doesn't mean stupid...it means she and her brothers were never formally taught. I find her memoir compelling and completely believable.

As a trauma therapist, who works with many people with complex PTSD, this memoir rang completely true. In a family with a bipolar, possibly personality disordered father, a mother who ignores the abuse (called neglect), a brother who is an abuser and probably personality disordered, the family members who dare to speak the truth are scapegoated, ridiculed, persecuted and pushed out of the family. Family systems of denial are very powerful. Tara’s self-concept took on the voice of the abuser until she got enough distance, therapy and clarity that she could separate enough from that voice (though I imagine she still needs to work to keep that voice from overpowering her). Her own struggle with denial, struggle with her own truth, all of this is completely in line with victims of family trauma. I’d say this is a back about trauma and recovery, more than ‘education’ in terms of the way we usually view that word.

Educational neglect isn't talked about often. I had the same kind of childhood. When you are educationally neglected, learning becomes a survival strategy. Psychological trauma fucks up your memory, something people don't really understand. Your brain cannot swallow what happened to you, so it does its best to hide or break apart the memories into more manageable pieces, but the trauma doesn't fully go away. I don't think it was embellished at all.

Saying to people who've surmounted huge odds, "Well, you did survive, so it can't have been THAT bad" somehow feels very wrong to me. It's as if you're using their own guts, brains, and hard work as a tool to discredit what they say about their own journey. How does that make sense? Also the argument that 3 of the kids got PhDs is not exactly evidence that their schooling at home was adequate. Read the book. This is not a suburban family's dream result: the three who did not get PhDs never got high school diplomas. The ones who did get PhDs did so not because of their home "schooling" but in spite of it. Except the bit about total immersion in a textual tradition: granted, that can be a good element of an education. BUT it was provided not as education, but as scripture, so although the kids did have access to some aspects of literacy, they were absolutely not allowed to think critically about what they read, or to sift and weigh different kinds of evidence. After the first three or four kids, they also weren't taught math or science, but learned those things completely on their own--or not. So I don't buy the argument that because three of them did get out, their childhood and education were actually okay. Yes, they did learn to question--but what taught them was not their parents' example or coaching, but the drastic contradictions and irrationalities that their lives were composed of. They learned critical thinking from trying to make sense of the contradictions between their fundamentalist upbringing by a mentally ill father, and the glimpses they got of life off the mountain! That's not a testimonial to their parents' homeschooling talents! Also I find it weird that some people are trying to say "oh look there are some holes in her story" when she's the one who put the holes on display in the first place and said, "Memory is very weird. This is what I remember, this is how this other brother remembers it," and so on.

In response to the Poptimist's comment about Tara's family having a thriving business (which he mentions to support the idea that the parents aren't completely inept): That is clearly acknowledged in the book. In interviews, Tara has described her mother as a skilled herbalist with a booming business. The parents' extreme religious and political views are what fuels the herb business among like-minded people who think prayers and oils will cure cancer. Her mother claims to have been cured of cancer despite the fact that no doctor was involved in the diagnosis or supposed cure.

You clearly didn't have an abusive childhood if you think this was embellished

Besides being an engrossing memoir, I thought Tara was just a great writer. I really hope she starts writing historical fiction and/or nonfiction.

As someone who’s able to relate with the book a lot (fundamentalist homeschool family and leaving home at 19 with nothing past the 7th grade in education) I’ll vouch for the possibility that the children could make it out and have amazing success, while still having grown up in those conditions....because I did, and I’ve watched my older siblings teach themselves algebra, writing, science, etc. Sometimes the realization of what ou’ve missed creates an insatiably drive to succeed.

I read this for my book club. Great read. The author was up front where she encountered differing accounts of the same events. Genuine, heartbreaking read.

I really hope a studio has the balls to make this a grade A movie. It would do very well

Embellished? My experience is that these things are usually under-embellished and under-reported. Tara kept a journal. Journals are generally kept for the person to process events, quite often horrible ones, to make them less horrible. Much of her journal refuted anything bad happened until she realized she was misreporting what was going on because, as someone who was abused by people close to her, she needed to make sense of it emotionally, hence her always laughing things off while pretending things didn't hurt. She stopped laughing when she became clear about right and wrong. This in addition to being Mormon woman and taught by her family to support "the man". Her story is a template for what I have seen over and over again....

It must be inevitable that all memoirs have that element of unreliability as so few of us have perfect memories, we also often remember things differently to those who had the same experiences. My sisters and I, for example, will sit round a dinner table and argue incessantly about the retelling of an event in our childhood. Thanks for a balanced review !

Great review! I was blown away by this book, and found the violent scenes with Shawn really tough reading. It really does read like a thriller, you’re so spot on!

Perfect review!!! I got really excited when I saw you had uploaded and that it was a book I’ve read!

I loved this. It’s so hard to distinguish between an emotional truth vs. actual truth. For example, when at times Westover admits in between Educated that she can’t fully remember certain incidents, like a car accident, it leaves me a bit unsure how to take in the information. So true about the thriller nature of the narrative between herself and her abusive brother, although it leaves me to wonder, as you say, so much of the input from Westover’s siblings about her version of their childhood.

Great book! She talked about her mother’s business taking off at various points in the book while she was in college and that was over 5-8 years ago so you can’t compare the company of today to her story. Same as with where her siblings currently are education wise.

I landed here while preparing to lead a church book club discussion on Educated. I've already Your review is excellent, and I'm going to add a link to it in the material I'm getting together for the members. Thanks!

I'm currently reading it now. You did a great review. It reminds me so much of the Glass Castle which I read many years ago.

This sounds super interesting. I gotta add it to my TBR. Great review!

It's also possible that her story wasn't "embellished". I know of a family who grew up with an extremely abusive father and all the siblings went on to be very successful.

I’ve had this on reserve at my library for months... I think I might actually get it next month. Ha! Sounds like it will be worth the wait.

There are so many people like her father and mother in idaho. In the rural areas mostly but they r there !! This is so real it's scary. I'm from Idaho

Hey buddy you just explained why it was such a great story! Thanks big man!

Nice to hear your thoughts on this. I've had this on hold at my library for awhile now and was wondering if it was going to be worth the wait. I guess I'll still give it a shot when I get it.

We have to remember that each individual's experience in a family can be different.

Agreed! Watched a few lectures with her and she's brilliant and stays true to her stories on the fly as well. Never disses the Latter Day Saints either=respect. Tough read, but worth it.

I really enjoyed your review, and hearing your thoughts on the book. It’s one I’ve wanted to read since I’d first heard of it but just hadn’t picked up. But as you said, there’s a lot of buzz and most everyone I’ve heard from who read it really enjoyed it. I think I might have to pick it up. Thanks for the review!

Thank you for zooming out a bit on this one - most of the reviews I’ve heard haven’t addressed anything outside of the book’s narrative and I wondered if there’d been any pushback or anything that might disprove some of her claims. I tend to prefer less flashy memoirs but am intrigued for the writing. Maybe when it’s out in paperback. I’ve heard a few comparisons with The Glass Castle too, have you read that one?

I think Tara's story is amazing. I Love that she took the time to recognize where she could be wrong and gives alternate versions of events. I did not love it though. I thought it was ok. I think part of my problem was I was expecting something a little bit different than I got.

“Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover is a testament to the power of education and the lengths one can go to pursue it. Despite her unconventional and challenging upbringing, Westover’s determination to learn and grow shines through. Her journey from a secluded life in Idaho to the halls of Harvard and Cambridge is inspiring. The book is a stark reminder of the transformative power of education and its potential to change lives. It’s a compelling read that leaves a lasting impression.

I just finished reading this, and it does kinda read like a thriller in parts because of Shawn. It was really good.

Another point I agree with from below...is most often these things are under-reported...even when you watch her interviews...she constantly minimizes the level of violence that her brother and father acted out on her...it is hard for me to watch her interviews because she seems very disconnected from the trauma in her effort to protect her family from the judgment of the public...or perhaps she has healed in a way that allows her to recant these events with such calm...either way...there is no way to embellish the events in this book... the danger that she and her brothers were constantly placed in by her father are criminal...I would bet that she has grossly minimized the trauma and pain that she and her brothers lived through...No child should be placed in these situations...period. The way they handled her when she tried to seek help from her parents is classic....deny and blame the victim is what families tend to do in these situations...It is hard to walk away from your family when you have to face the fact that mental illness and abuse is the prevailing theme....to have people call you a liar...is just wrong...even if you felt her story is not true...which you can clearly see in the book that she denied it herself to the point of going back time and again and putting herself in harm's way...to blame a survivor of abuse is just, to me, as criminal and makes me think those who do so have and condone this same type of pathology in their own families or would be the type of person to participate themselves...no one ever tells the world they are sick and abusive and violent toward children...they just don't...they start with the most vulnerable in their families, churches, schools...and they intimidate them to not feel powerful enough to change it or to tell someone who can...there is nothing original about her parents' behavior...the only thing shocking is that she, her sister, and brothers survived...now what I am wondering is who is protecting the next generation of children in this family? Tara's sister has daughters...that her brother seemed very interested in...I would almost bet he has tried to abuse physically, sexually, or both...those girls...he has kids himself (a terrifying thought) and I find it odd that nothing sexual happened...or is it that she is not telling as to protect her family legally...It is very rare in these cases that children in some way are not sexually abused...I feel there is a part of her that is still protecting them...which even more so confirms for me that she is far from an embellisher.

Such an amazing review!! I read all of the links. So interesting. I am getting up slowly, grabbing this one from my shelf, & reading this one until my eyes get tired. Lol

Great vid. Still undecided, if it's something I'm interested in... ;)

This is such an irritating review. Just sounds as though you are subtly trying to discredit her without actually coming out and saying so. Even if her brother did disagree, it doesn't mean that her experience wasn't exactly as she described. Most siblings have entirely different experiences of the same events in their childhoods and very often, completely different memories of those events. And clearly, you have NO idea of how horrendous some children's upbringings are, even if they do turn out alright as adults.

As a person who was raised in a fundamentalist cult movement very similar in some ways, this story is 100% believable. Also believable is how her brothers did not have the same experience or overall feeling about their childhood as she did, as women are oppressed in these circumstances.

I really liked Educated. Very good writing, thank you Tara

An eye opening story. 👍

Another great review - this one is on my tbr and I appreciate the balanced take :)

Loved hearing your thoughts! I'm one of the people being on the fence about reading it. Although I agree with you that all memoirs embellish/leave stuff out/remember incorrectly, I just don't trust the story enough to pick it up. At least not right now. I think I will wait until the hype has died down.

Growing up in post WWII Tokyo ,I was amazed as to what a vast variety of Americans who in this vast country I moved to in 1970. I was a young bride who visited my husband's family in Tulsa, and Clairmore ,OK and was shocked to see some poverty from olden days ,Fundamental religious in law who will not divorce an abusive alcoholic husband. I experienced as a bystander of these subcultures. I agree with you that her book, Educated may nt reflect a reality from other family members' memories . She did say by the time she was aware of her unusual upbringing,older siblings were not really in her life. This extremist father who instilled self sufficiency and Independence based on GOD's will is the only way to live marked all her siblings. It also describes Abuser and Abused relationship well in this book. Some Psychologist call is Stockholm Syndrome.Authorities will no doubt break up this family if they knew what was happening to all their kids. All in all as you said ,many so called autobiographical books may have some inaccurate memories, stories embellilshed to make stories more interesting or intriguing,I and many other will be fascinated by her experience,and her understanding of her truth. I as an immigrant wife into cultures foreign to me can relate to her new experiences far from where she grew up. Yes there is a similarity in Hillbilly Elegy and other memoirs. A memoirs of a Geisha for instance.I recommend this book for any suburban kids who takes education for granted.

Perfectly articulated my thoughts about this book

I associated her constant review with other's narratives as consequence of being gaslighted when she tried to confront her family ... If anything her academic formation helped her to bring her own voice in the story.

The children in "The Glass Castle" over came great odds as well. It happens all the time, not everyone writes a book about it.

Just watched this now and thought I'd let you know that the link to the lawyer's statement seems to longer work (or it's a country of origin issue). Really enjoyed this even though I haven't read the book!

I still love million little pieces. Real or not, it was a great story. It helped me at a time in my life when I needed it. Educated is one my TBR. Now to research Priestdaddy.....

I never heard of this book, but I do want to buy it and read it!!

My favorite book of the year.

Having seen and lived some extreme "lifestyles" and knowing intimately people who have lived through some crazy horrors, I feel her story was written as honestly as humanly possible . She even goes out of her way to try and recall facts using others' accounts. The fact that so mant think its false, just shows how evolved our society is.

I'm probably a little over halfway through the audiobook and have really enjoyed it. Look at youtube videos on metal shears. I was expecting an industrial machine that sucked children in and spat out bones. In all the videos I could find, they look pretty tame to me. That said, I'm in Texas and have known a lot of preppers and was into it myself back in my younger days. While not as bad as Tara's father, I know numerous people that could be the light version of him. Some of the book does seem a little over the top, but I find the majority of it to be believable. Even if it isn't 100% factual, I guarantee you I could introduce you to some people that would remind you of her father. Maybe they don't feed their kids to the iron-eating machine, but they have probably thought about it a time or two.

everyone is talking about this, I am starting to get interested.

so how old was she when the company started generating millions?

‘I wanted to get a tetanus shot just reading about it.’ 🤣 we did this on the podcast & thought it was powerful, although it made us very angry with her parents. The most striking thing was that she had to overcome her entire worldview in order to learn to think for herself.

Its a MILLION times better than Hillbilly Elegy. It's a great book.

I was going to ask who is this pompist man? Then I saw the youtube channel's name.

I don't think the abuse sounds embellished. I empathized very strongly with the normalized horror of it. Reading "Educated" I found Tara to be very passive and unsure of herself, not surprising given the way she grew up. Her brother sounds very sure of himself, possibly also because of the dynamic he grew up with. It would not have hurt her book at all to mention the other siblings' academic achievements, but she was mainly writing about their interactions with her, not providing a complete family history. Her brother sounds like he wants to write his own book, Tara is probably not going to get the last word.

Looking for the link you mentioned. As with all memoirs, it is the writer’s own point of view on events in their life. Interesting to me is the question of how families can and do allow the least healthy member to “drive the bus,” and Tara’s realization that her father was bipolar or schizophrenic. Fascinating read.

What i dont get is how she remembers everything

I am a third generation Idahoan (but not LDS). I do not disbelieve her story.

It is clear to me from Tyler's review that he is only giving a second viewpoint of how his parents were. Coming from a Chinese immigrant background, it is very clear to me how the experiences of the children in a more traditional family household can differ greatly between the boys and the girls, especially one that is dysfunctional/abusive. It's very saddening to me that the majority of the critical discussion about this book are those who discredit the extent to Tara's abuse. It's this kind of discussion exactly that makes me uncomfortable talking about my own abuse with others. That people wouldn't believe me because they've never experienced parents that could behave that way, so I must be embellishing my story. As for the education aspect, Tara and her siblings all grew up reading the Bible very attentively from a very young age. All the kids in her family probably had reading comprehension that was off the charts. I really think reading comprehension is invaluable to education. If you can read well, I think you can teach yourself almost anything.

I searched out a review on the plausibility of this book and was not disappointed. I can't believe most in the comments disagree with the reviewer.

People hate to admit that these things happen...there is abuse!!!! it goes unreported and families, in order to not look culpable in the abuse will push back on the member of the family who outs the others...This family abused this girl and allowed her pyscho brother too as well! Good Read!

Many people actually have a similar life story as Tara. A lot of people !

All the people doubting her don’t have a hint of idea what an abusive childhood is like.

Is your title just click bait?

I don’t believe Tara’s family. I know what it’s like to grow up in a dysfunctional family with a bipolar father. There is an unspoken rule of silence, and when you break silence, the others involved keep the lie going and refuse to tell the truth.

What is he saying? That the family situation in Educated is unbelievable? Why? I find it very credible. Of course she overcame the lack of formal education- in a way her tough parents gave her something better: a non- conformist ability to evaluate our mostly very conformist society. Also- everyone knows that children from the same family often disagree about the 'facts'. This is the case in my own family, where due to the difference in our ages we have radically different takes on family events. I salute Tara, and I even salute her crazy, charismatic and eccentric dad! Out of his madness he and his wife have produced a good writer! So many people have all their creativity and originality worn out of them on their journey through life on the conveyor belt of a 'normal' education.

Although it’s compared to Glass Castle I find I prefer that book to this one. I didn’t find her upbringing too far out to be believable, but for me it was the leap into college that was lacking. I wanted more details about how she actually just tested in- I mean she says she had like one text book to read ? She had never heard of WW2? She just got in with a little nudge from a professor? After watching how hard students work to pass exams and barley scrape their way into a university this was hard for me to just read at face value, but still, I really enjoyed the book and it is one I think about often.

Didn’t her grandmother steal her away to go to school In Arizona?

I thought both Tara and Laree wrote well-written, interesting books. However, two of Tara's brothers got PhD's in more rigorous fields than Tara so I don't think the family was against higher education. Tara may have embellished things a bit. Also, since Tara was raised in a religious home, but then took her boyfriend with her to grad school and even lived with him on a stay in France, I wonder if she started having more conflicts with her family in part because she was living in sin.

Her family might have gone to church every Sunday, but they were not Mormon. They were literally crazy.

Are you working for Tara Westover's parents? Your "review" is nonsense.

She want to close the car though she can just move her car and she can just drive it

So many readers have said "I'm sure she was abused, but she's probably exaggerating for the sake of the story" - and that's a dangerous thing to do without clear evidence that the victim is lying about their experiences. One one hand you have a Ph.D. historian who is open about the limitations of her own memories, and on the other you have a family that earns millions of dollars a year selling homeopathic remedies, foot zoning, energy healing, and essential oils - and whose livelihood is threatened by the book. The mother wrote a book in response that essentially doubled-down on all the kooky claims Tara outlined, and that confirms to me that if I'm going to doubt anyone in this story, it's going to start with her family. I've lived in the Mountain West and have friends who are acquainted with the Westovers. I won't pretend that this gives me any inside information on the truthfulness of her story, but I absolutely understand how prevalent these beliefs are in rural religious areas, and how entangled the doomsday prepper and wellness cult communities are. I went through some abuse in my younger years, and it is interesting to look back and realize that the details that stand out most to me are emotionally-laden ones, and not necessarily the hard facts. After tracing over the memory a thousand times, I can't tell you what is fact, what was interpolated over time, and which details might be exaggerations. I bet a third-party witness was probably in a better frame of mind to get a more objective picture of the event, but what I do recall with perfect clarity is the emotional reality of what it did to me. So I totally understand if her siblings contest details from the story, but what they cannot say is how it affected Tara, and I think above everything else, that's the element of the story you have to get right. Many of these criticisms or "both sides" journalism pieces are sloppily done, almost as if the writer didn't read the book. For example, Tara lays out the context for her other siblings who went on to higher education: Val (the father) felt having an engineer in the family would be good for the business, but he told Tara that a woman's place was in the home. She also talked about times when he was supportive - helping her with trigonometry or pitching in financially when she was short on tuition. Overall, I wish the journalism community were less lazy about amplifying the gaslighting her family is doing in the name of making a story more complicated than it really is. Because there are probably thousands of Taras out there watching the world react to her story and deciding whether they should risk going public with their own.

Billions of people grew up like this all around the world. It's one person's' story' of growing up. Time to write my book LOL

I'm angry!! Visibly angry at the father!!!!

Just came here to say that LaRee helped me find healing and gentle relief that modern medicine from the “educated” were never able to give me.

You don't know her father was bipolar, even Westover attests to this.Based on the book alone I might hazard a guess that he possibly had schizoaffective or schizoid paranoid personality.

I just listened to it. It only took me 3 days. I found myself yelling at her numerous times. I let out audible sighs often after chapters and at the end. I was absolutely exhausted by the end. Girlfriend! Move on! I need a follow up! I also need a movie!

I be read 7 memoirs of females raised izlum ....very similar... Some catholic experiences also similar....all people who know about G-D ....just don t know HIM....or have not chosen to live HIS directives ....trust....not control....tara s dad was controlling.....that is against G-D n brings damage....perhaps that control mania also evolves into bi polar....

This is truly a great story and I'm not just saying that because my brother is mentioned in the book and no I'm not Tara Westover my brother is Drew mecham he's mentioned in the book the book is very good though I have never personally Read it

Your life experience is obviously not able to see through the gaslighting. Her higher than average intelligence quotient helped her along through the abuse. Abuse impacts memory!

If you were to properly study abuse and domestic violence within the family structure, you would have a more informed review on your hands. If you truly read the book you would note that the patriarch of the family had, and still has, quite the psychological control over his children and wife. I read Tyler's review about the book and it sounded like he was reading from a script that his father all but wrote for him. Which is unsurprising, as Tara stated, Tyler was accepted back into the family after he supported her, but it came with "conditions." I'm fairly certain that one of those conditions was complying with and supporting their father's "reality" to be the one and true reality. Terms I recommend you study- "Gaslighting" "Scapegoating" "Domestic Violence"

👌

How dare you mock-voice the physical abuse of a woman as being like a fictional thriller.

Of course the highly paid family's lawyer (four kids remember it differently than the three still working for the family and being more and more prosperous by it) has another opinion as the half family's representative. Cover up, be quiet, you are insane, you remember wrongly, you are not to be trusted, you made this up, you lie, you, you, you - nothing to do with us! The mother seems to be a double-faced lier ;(

I think her mom did a damn good job with her salves and midwifery. I am sure she attended a lot of complicated births that OBs would not know how to handle and just do surgeries.

Oh, that is a shame! I wanted to read this so much. But I cannot stand being lied to. Since there's no way to verify things one way or the other, it's best I stay away. Thanks for this information. I had not heard this until now.

I would trust Alex Jones Brain fusion plus before those “herbs”

Love the book, but i cant belive the story is real, sorry

Gods pharmacy... Lol

I found your angle on this memoir so cynical and mocking! You ARE in- validating her story!

Nope, still feeling the burn from the James Frey "memoir" so I stay clear of them for the most part. If Tara Westover had written Educated as pure fiction don't you think you might have loved it all the more?

Geez, first time I've checked in with you, Mr. Poptimist, but your smug, cold-hearted analytical review left me not wanting to pop-in again for other insights from your pen. Clearly, while a healthy bit of "worldly' skepticism is not a bad thing...you're on over-drive.