Educated

About the book

Tara Westover recounts her upbringing in a survivalist Mormon family in the mountains of Idaho. Kept out of the healthcare and education systems, she spent her childhood scavenging in her father’s junkyard and preparing for the end of the world. Her father’s bipolar disorder and her brother’s physical abuse created a volatile domestic environment. At seventeen, Westover taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to pass the ACT, eventually securing admission to Brigham Young University and later earning a PhD from Cambridge University.

Readers interested in the conflict between fundamentalist isolation and modern secularism will find a detailed account of ideological estrangement. The narrative serves those studying the psychological impacts of domestic violence and the cognitive dissonance required to leave a closed community. Readers walk away with a specific understanding of how academic literacy functions as a mechanism for individual autonomy, even when that independence results in the permanent loss of family ties and childhood belonging.

Details

Published

2018

Language

EN