Tara Westover: Educated, Random House, 9780525510673, paperback
German Edition:  Befreit,  Kiepenheuer & Witsch, gebunden

It’s been a while since I stayed up late because I needed to finish a book. This just happened while reading Tara Westover’s “Educated”. 

It was almost physically painful at times to read Tara Westover’s testimony of what it was like to grow up in an abusive, tyrannical, survivalist Mormon home in Idaho with parents who are religious zealots and as crazy as a bat.  I found myself mad as hell at her parents for not protecting her from her abusive and violent brother Shawn.  How she was able to survive a childhood doing heavy physical, dangerous men’s work in her father’s junkyard is beyond me. The physical violence and disregard for her and her sibling’s personal safety that her parents exposed them to and the tragedies that followed, all under the umbrella 

of “God’s will”, is incomprehensible. How they overcame severe injuries without proper medical attention with her mothers herbal medicine their only aid,  borders on a miracle.

Never having set foot in a classroom let alone sharing intimacy with other children apart from siblings, Tara’s brother Tyler is the first one who starts to doubt his father’s severe religious beliefs  studying in secret for his high school equivalent test which would enable him to go to college. He is also the one to introduce Tara to music, encouraging her to use her beautiful voice and to start studying. 

I found it particularly heartbreaking how her hunger for knowledge and education is met by rejection and punishment from her family and how she never gives up loving her family, longing for their approval. It is haunting how powerful to this day, after all her achievements, her parents pull remains. That she was able to walk her own path staying true to her beliefs without their love and support is an incredible achievement, a testimony of determination, resilience and strength.  An absolutely five star rating for this memoir.