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A review by cyndireadsbooks
Educated by Tara Westover
5.0
A few notes on this book (that I recommend wholeheartedly) after reading a few negative reviews on Goodreads.
1. Educated is not quite as literal as it sounds. This isn’t just a book about how an unschooled girl gets schooling. So know that going in.
2. While there is certainly a survivalist and fundamentalist bent to this books, this isn’t a Warren Jeffs or even a David Koresh scenario. I think a good bit of this perception comes from how the book is being marketed somewhat inaccurately. I think this has more to do with mental illness than religious fundamentalism. The mental illness manifests as their religion in some ways. This family didn’t practice the same religion as the rest of their community. They weren’t AT Ruby Ridge or even living a particularly similar life and once the author gets some facts about real news events, she herself has some revelations about what she thought her life/reality was, based on what information she received from her father and mother. See: mental illness above.
3. Yes. It does seem unrealistic. But after the James Frey fiasco, these books are pretty well fact checked. The author herself points out the way memories differ amongst witnesses, but the facts (if not some of the minutia) in the book have been corroborated by three of her brothers and her then boyfriend and by printed documentation in some cases. In general, those who disagree are the ones who were the perpetrators - those with a vested interest in saying it is false in order to protect their reputation and finances.
4. There are gaps. How can she afford plane tickets. When did she go from unable to wear rounded collar shirts to living with someone. Why was it ok for XY to go to the hospital but not XYZ. Those things were not the story she chose to tell. It’s a relatively short book and she’s telling a very specific story. You won’t have every question answered but that doesn’t mean the whole thing is then false.
5. As with so many GR reviews, a fair number of the complaints I read were simply people not reading carefully. A lot of the questions people had were actually explained in the narrative. Specifically. In some detail. For two pages. One example - how did this poor family suddenly become wealthy? Covered. Repeatedly. And it’s not an insignificant thing. So I’m not sure how they still have those types of question. I see that A LOT in negative reviews of many many books.
6. I think the comparisons to The Glass Castle are inevitable. There are a great number of similarities, but the story is different enough, the journey is unique enough, to leave room for both. I am glad that I read them many years apart rather than side by side. It would have been a monotony of tragedy.
1. Educated is not quite as literal as it sounds. This isn’t just a book about how an unschooled girl gets schooling. So know that going in.
2. While there is certainly a survivalist and fundamentalist bent to this books, this isn’t a Warren Jeffs or even a David Koresh scenario. I think a good bit of this perception comes from how the book is being marketed somewhat inaccurately. I think this has more to do with mental illness than religious fundamentalism. The mental illness manifests as their religion in some ways. This family didn’t practice the same religion as the rest of their community. They weren’t AT Ruby Ridge or even living a particularly similar life and once the author gets some facts about real news events, she herself has some revelations about what she thought her life/reality was, based on what information she received from her father and mother. See: mental illness above.
3. Yes. It does seem unrealistic. But after the James Frey fiasco, these books are pretty well fact checked. The author herself points out the way memories differ amongst witnesses, but the facts (if not some of the minutia) in the book have been corroborated by three of her brothers and her then boyfriend and by printed documentation in some cases. In general, those who disagree are the ones who were the perpetrators - those with a vested interest in saying it is false in order to protect their reputation and finances.
4. There are gaps. How can she afford plane tickets. When did she go from unable to wear rounded collar shirts to living with someone. Why was it ok for XY to go to the hospital but not XYZ. Those things were not the story she chose to tell. It’s a relatively short book and she’s telling a very specific story. You won’t have every question answered but that doesn’t mean the whole thing is then false.
5. As with so many GR reviews, a fair number of the complaints I read were simply people not reading carefully. A lot of the questions people had were actually explained in the narrative. Specifically. In some detail. For two pages. One example - how did this poor family suddenly become wealthy? Covered. Repeatedly. And it’s not an insignificant thing. So I’m not sure how they still have those types of question. I see that A LOT in negative reviews of many many books.
6. I think the comparisons to The Glass Castle are inevitable. There are a great number of similarities, but the story is different enough, the journey is unique enough, to leave room for both. I am glad that I read them many years apart rather than side by side. It would have been a monotony of tragedy.