Educated

by Westover, Tara

Published: February 20, 2018

Read: September 3, 2023

★★★★★

Review

This. Book. Slaps. One of the best books I read in a while and I finished it in two days. It’s an absolutely wild life story that's deeply engrossing, violent, dramatic, and reflexive. The memories are explored in their jumbled confusion and words chatter in her mind. Her family is the protagonist and antagonist, the abusive lover. The author has this brilliant ability to articulate her internal struggle and pull out emotional themes. It has this profound, stirring rawness that deeply struck me; shame, guilt, and triumph. Ideas and tropes that feel strangely relatable. Reignited my passion for reading, I want more of this in my life! "You could call this selfhood many things, transformation, metamorphosis, falsity, betrayal, I call it an education"

Notes

This👏book👏slaps👏. One of the best books I read in a while and I finished it in two days. It’s an absolutely wild life story that's deeply engrossing, violent, dramatic, and reflexive. The memories are explored in their jumbled confusion and words chatter in her mind. Her family is the protagonist and antagonist, the abusive lover. The author has this brilliant ability to articulate her internal struggle and pull out emotional themes. It has this profound, stirring rawness that deeply struck me; shame, guilt, and triumph. Ideas and tropes that feel strangely relatable. Reignited my passion for reading, I want more of this in my life!

"You could call this selfhood many things, transformation, metamorphosis, falsity, betrayal, I call it an education"

#Book

when world of men failed her family would survive, 4 of 7 siblings didn’t have north certificate but would get honorary one when 9
Father wanted to be self sufficient so pushed wife to be midwife, opened them to liability so she was only for 100 miles
Getting her a birth certificate was difficult as church documents and everyone thought birthday was different day
father told story of feds coming for another family where they defend themselves with guns until father and mother shot in window and baby pulled from bloody arms
Grandma took her away then to school and father couldn’t come because it was time before winter when he and boys had to work all day
father grew up on mountain running farm and was stronger, more independent minded then other boys mom said
- Moms family against the marriage
- Moms family lived in town, met when she was working a bowling alley
Same bipolar paranoia of her father would make it never known or treated
As grandma died thought she was only one that could understand how fundamentalism was dividing mother and daughter and carving up her life
Father lost energy and couldn’t get out of bed, so family went to grandparents in Arizona where they waited out the winter
Father believed in mothers herbs and hated satans doctors and pills, mother thought they were just supplements and doctor was for serious things
mother in car accident with uninsured car and no one wearing seatbelts, mother got racoon eyes sign of serious brain injury and never went to doctor
- persistent headaches 9 months after and mental issues
- dad and her devastated about not midwifing anymore
mother made oils using muscle testing where she would say aloud “I have a migraine what would make it better” and push something over chest and see if her body went towards or away
- She began to muscle test everything including flour in recipes and everything
- It was god speaking through your body
knee gashed because dangerous helping dad in junkyard scrapping metal and mother gave her herbs
she told her father I want to go to school
luke, her brother, burned his legs and lost all his skin when she was 10
- they treated by sticking leg in garbage can with water and mom muscle tested whether she was infected
- Luke had twine belt and shoes he would duct tape on
- who put out the fire?
  - Dad put out the fire, but luke started some fires that dad had to put it out with his hand
  - luke has memory of dad putting him a tub and driving him back
  - Her memory different from family
“impose west coast socialism on the good people of Idaho”
she started babysitting and started dancing ballet with girls her age
- When teacher asked her to get leotard she said she couldn’t teacher thought money but about modesty, mother let her wear it and she would hide it
- surprised by her own legs and all the little harlots
- father went to recital and she butchered performance to not show her legs while he yelled about promiscuous devil teaching
first time she sang in front of congregation 3 people asked her to sing for some X and everyone loved it
- Dad would be so proud and nice to everyone like for once world wasn’t scary and corrupting and her voice should be heard
- Dad was never too tired to drive her to hear her sing
She had one friend who parents her dad convinced school was hell and so she stopped being normal
dad let her lead in plays in town despite thinking it’s corrupting still drove her
dad raged about y2k and end of days, but time hit and she expected to lose her life but nothing
- God for his loyal servant didn’t send the flood
- Dad despondent
dad went out in storm and crashed car
- Police wanted to know why car was uninsured and there was no seatbelts or seats in the car
- She lost consciences
- A few days after the crash her neck froze and got headaches
  - Mom called energy specialist who told her to imagine a bubble of what she loved and she would heal if she did
Shawn was oldest who left home at 17 and doing odd jobs like trucking and welding
- People in town said he was trouble, a bad egg, had concealed gun
- One said he was known for fighting like a mad man so everyone in town tried to pick fights with him
- Brother cracked her neck and she could move it again
- No one noticed his canine teeth never actually came in and he still had his baby teeth, was too late when noticed
grandfather let out horses and they became wild, they would gather some up to seek every once in a while
- Some wild stallions they would try to break them to ride them
Shawn talked with this girl Sadie and said she has those fish eyes, pretty but nothing behind the eyes
- Would ask her for a snickers, she would buy it, he would ask for a Milky Way, then she would go again and he would ask her for a snickers again
  - This kind of thing happened often
- She was desperate when he wouldn’t return her calls
Shawn asked her for a glass of water, and when she dumped it on his head grabbed her in wrist hold until she broke and apologized
- For years thinks of that night and thought it didn’t affect her, but hallowing out the feeling was the effect
she didn’t want to develop in to one of the that her dad talked about
- Shawn stopped calling her little sister instead called her fish eyes
Shawn woke her up by choking her and called her a whore
- her didn’t want her to become aanipulative women who uses her looks to get things
Tyler back from college, told her to go to college and this is the worst possible place for her
- Admissions board will believe what they tell it about being home schooled
- “There’s a world out there Tara, he said and it will look a lot different when dad isn’t whispering his view of it in your ear”
- Just pass the act
industrial granaries contract and crew Shawn dad luke and another husband, but reputation for fast reliable work and Shawn good foreman
- Shawn wanted better equipment, dad wanted things to stay the same
she knew her life and it didn’t include college, when she 18 or 19 she would marry and get part of farm and become herb and midwife
Shawn fell and doctors didn’t know whether he would live
- miracle he hadn’t died when he hit the ground
- Tara, her name, was only name he said asleep and awake
- she was afraid he would die and she would be proud
- Would be paying off bills for decade and as soon as could travel lived in front room for 2 months
- Shawn would tell tangents and she quit her job to care for him
- Shawn would go into rage to hurt people with words, personality change or was he always like this
  - She liked to think it was all this injury
father said gods wrath would come to her for going to college
- told mother she decided not to go and mother told her to go “of all my children you were the one I thought would burst out of here in a blaze”
Without Shawn father crew was worse so dad went back to scrapping
16 and had never taken exam but need top 15%
- mother and father almost kicked her out and mother thought she was 20
Shawn fought dad about shear dangerous metal throw you, and he and Tara ran it for a month and he got thrown around
Shawn was only one he ever saw walk away from being yelled at by dad
“what if I get brainwashed” at college
- Shawn replies you as smart as dad you will tell when you get there
Shawn gets into motorcycle accident and could see brain and Tara sees him
- dad just said to bring him home and that her mother could handle it
- Instead he took her to the hospital
- dad never spoke about it but now there was no question that he would go
- “I am not a good daughter, I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep”
she got a 28, a miracle
- She resolved to never again work for her dad
- got job bagging groceries at 40 hours a week
- Tyler wrote application for byu and she got in, (crazy she didn’t go to school and got 28)
- Didn’t want to ask Tyler for help to get education she lied and said she had Part two
realized her roommates were gentiles and saw her roommate buy something on the Sabbath, she had never bought anything on the Sabbath
she accidentally signed up for the wrong classes not intro and had to refresh in first week
her first exam got every question wrong
in reading in class she said she didn’t know the word and professor was like thanks for that, not funny, the word was Holocaust
she was most religious family, others believed in modesty and gods power to heal and preparing for second coming, she practiced modesty and left injuries up to god and was prepared for second coming
she had learned to read and write by reading Bible and speeches so teacher said her writing was oddly formal
friend gave her great advice to read the textbook she thought to just look at pictures when assigned readings
she called Tyler as her last lifeline and he said what do you want me to do, she was trying to help but she needed more
As in every class but one and half of tuition would be scholarship
believes her fathers word ought to be her own
when Charlie’s a boy they talked for two hours on phone and spent week together and he would touch her and she would flinch and think whore
he flinched at being called nigga by shawn
she had never seen a pill up close and thought if she took one her child forever would be deformed
- her mothers shit didn’t work and so she learned to admire pain
- Surprised taking pill for headache worked in 30 mins
she needed scholarship to go and need perfect on midterm, she did it
She just laughed when Shawn grabbed her and put her near the toilet in front of Charlie’s and she just laughed
- Charlie’s left and he said this was over his head and he couldn’t save her only she could
Dad wanted Richard a very smart kid to go to college and disprove all the systems with his worldview
- Tyler and dad helped Richard give him time off
- Richard was younger, and dad thought he was Einstein pressure was teal
shawn forces her from car and her clothes rode up in parking lot and she convinced herself it was just fun and games and he couldn’t see he was hurting her
She learned marriage was gods plan but thought of herself as a whore
bishop listened to her speak for hours and offered to pay her rent, bishop made her promise she wouldn’t work for her father
she didn’t believe in government grants cuz dad said it was how Illuminati controlled you
- bishop wrote her check for 15k because she hurt her teeth so bad with nerve, she refused
- Stole her parents tax returns to get 4K grant
- Shawn gave her 100 bill and gift from god
the story she had heard as a kid was the randy weaver story and he survived with son and wife sniped
- Huge media coverage and oversight
- now he speaks at gun shows, conflict happened when randy sold shotguns to federal agents about white supremacy
- Bipolar described dad, paranoia
  - she became obsessed with it and wrote paper about bipolar parents on kids was double whammy of bad environment and predisposed to disease
  - She yelled at dad about scaring her as kids, how could he not fight against monsters in his own house, putting faith above safety
dad burned below his nose and hands, couldn’t eat or drink for days and refused to go to doctor he would rather die
- Dad went from talker to listener and one day rasped tell me more about the classes
- Audrey is younger sister
Shawn wife believed in Shawn and knows devil tremors him cuz he has power, “he’s a spiritual man”
Broke up with Nick boyfriend because she could t share her experience
why was she attracted to unwomenly things?
- She was attracted to Jewish history
- Teacher said first find out what your capable of
dad right hand frozen permanently and face had weak skin, couldn’t walk across room with gasping
- Miracle of him surviving was founding myth of moms operation
- Mom transformed into him and wouldn’t correct under her breath, lord was beneath her now
Got into Cambridge competitive program and needed affadavidit from relative to get passport
She felt comfortable in wind on roof unlike everyone else, other became less comfortable she became more
She got weekly meeting with Cambridge professor, cared about historians about the process of making sense to make sense of how her history is different than everyone elses
- Steinberg said her essay was one of the best he had read ever and he would make sure she gets somewhere like Harvard or Cambridge
the world was wrong and dad was right, surprisingly she believed all of it
- Took years for Tyler’s wife to vaccinated his children cuz he thought it was a medical conspiracy like dad said
she did half a dozen interviews third byu student to get prestigious scholarship to Cambridge
- dad was hurt she didn’t mention homeschooling and didn’t go to graduation until she apologized
- dad worried when she leaves country he can’t drive to save her during end of days

Part three

positive liberty is self mastery alleviated from addiction and self coercion
“of the nature of women nothing can be known” she got hyped about feminism
parents Had huge natural oil production and got offer for 3 million
Audrey was sister and tried to get fed but after summer was 4-5th grade level and out of reach
- “if you act like a child I’ll treat you like a child” - Shawn used to say that
Audrey decided she should have stopped Shawn from doing what he did to her and wanted to stop him from hurting others
- mother told her “you were my child I should have protected you”
- ther told her “you were my child I should have protected you”
she started telling people she was once poor and ignorant, shame was not that poor ignorant life it was having a father that would throw her in shears
she found echoes of mormanism in her readings and would do her PhD on it as intellectual movement
Shawn was mad at Audrey and then her, he butcher a dog then put the knife in her hand
- she realized mother had never really told dad
- Audrey cut her off too and family cut her off
- she began to doubt her own memories as her family questioned her memories and acted like a lunatic doubting her own perception
father came to Harvard to save her and she really wanted to be saved and have her family back
- trade reality for his by taking blessing, but she said no
- father wanted to cast not a demon but her from her body
she stopped going to class, binge watched 18-20 of tv, would awake screaming the street
- mental breakdown, think your lazy not in distress
- you told me to stop you her boyfriend said when you do something stupid this was it, she decided to go back home
Mother saw darkness in her too and father said I love you and she said that had never been the issue
Tyler took her side after a year, but it would blow up in his face and he took time to defend her
she would run into street asleep screaming and would break out on her face
she was failing her PhD and had been year since she sent work
earned PhD at Harvard on Mormonism
she went back home and tried to see her mother, but mother said she would only see her if she saw father too ultimatum
her parents became largest employers in county
- Father paranoid and would fire everyone even family and old friends
  - Went to aunt Angie and said we both agree not to believe what father says
- home started with 5 bedroom and now expanded in all directions
family was split
- Richard, Tyler and her all got phds
- Tony Shawn Audrey luke all worked for parents and didn’t get high school diploma
- Richard said he would stand by her now
spent years justifying father abuse, but never stopped guilt because “guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchness”
- Her 16 year old self would come out and take the fathers shit but that day with Shawn and the dog and her father was the day that self didn’t come out
- “You could call this selfhood many things, transformation, metamorphosis, falsity, betrayal, I call it an education”

This book slaps. I read it in days. It’s engrossing, violent, dramatic, reflexive . The memories are explored in their jumbled confusion and words chatter in her mind. Journals and words. Her family is the protagonist and anatoginst the abusive lover. Shame and guilt and triumph. Crazy story. The author has a depth in her memories pulling out emotional themes and reflections that resonate. Ideas and tropes that feel strangely relatable. Reignited my passion for reading, I want more of this in my life