Tara Westover
Educated

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • WASHINGTON POST AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL OF EXCELLENCE • PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S 2018 SUMMER READING • ONE OF TIME'S BEST MEMOIRS OF 2018 SO FAR • ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • PBS NEWSHOUR/NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE MONTH
An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
"Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Tara Westover's] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?"-Vogue
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Praise for Educated
"Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others."-The New York Times Book Review
"A heartbreaking, heartwarming, best-in-years memoir about striding beyond the limitations of birth and environment into a better life."-USA Today
"A coming-of-age memoir reminiscent of The Glass Castle."-O: The Oprah Magazine
"Heart-wrenching . . . a beautiful testament to the power of education to open eyes and change lives."-Amy Chua, The New York Times Book Review
"Westover is a keen and honest guide to the difficulties of filial love, and to the enchantment of embracing a life of the mind."-The New Yorker
"Westover's one-of-a-kind memoir is about the shaping of a mind. . . . In briskly paced prose, she evokes a childhood that completely defined her."-The Atlantic