Thursday 12 March 2020

Educated by Tara Westover

Paperback, 384 pages
Published November 1st 2018 by Windmill Books 
Memoir
Library

I am a bit torn when it comes to this book. I was really bored by page 40 and gave up for some time, then I read a bit more because I had chosen this for my book club. Then I finished it so I would have something to talk about.

But did I like it? Eh. It had good points and low points. I did feel the author was too detached in her writing. When it comes to nonfic I want to feel their pain.

I also feel that she has to be the smarts person in the world. She had no real education at all, she did not know math, and she thought herself trig in a month. She did not understand that she had to read a book for class and not just look at the photos, and still she got a PHD. So what I learned is that if you study real hard then you can do anything! Nope, I am still pretty stupid.

I do hope she got some more professional help regarding her brother because she needs closure for sure. And this sounds bad but those parts where the best parts, because here it really showed how her life had been. A mentally unstable brother and father. And how her whole world falls apart.

While the uni part frankly made me feel pretty dumb.

So can I see why everyone was talking about this one? Not really. Would I recommend it? Nah. But hey this was my non fic of the year, well of last year cos I did not read one then.

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected.

She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn’t exist.

As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d travelled too far. If there was still a way home.

17 comments:

  1. I listened to this one and liked it quite a bit but I get what you mean about the writing - there wasn't much emotion to it.

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    Replies
    1. It was rather emotionless, I wanted more her

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  2. Yeah and this is like on all the book club lists of must reads. Thanks Blodeuedd

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    Replies
    1. Everyone loves it, one lady at my bookclub was all horrified and said I had to love it

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  3. I'm not really one for autobiographies and memoirs, and if the author's own voice feels detached from the writing and it's her own story? Oof.

    ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

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  4. Her story sounds pretty wild - too bad it felt flat.

    Karen @ For What It's Worth

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  5. I was curious about it because of her growing up in the prepper lifestyle, but good to know that its a bit detached in the writing style.

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    Replies
    1. It was not much about that, more about her uni years

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  6. Hmm I think you just talked me out of it. Was partially on my radar, but... time is short!

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  7. Well the prepper life would be handy right about now, right? Sorry to hear this wasn't a good as you hoped.

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