My Amazon and Goodreads review of Educated: A Memoir (Rating 5) – Breaking Free of the Ties that Bind. In Educated: A Memoir, Tara Westover recounts an isolated and ultra conservative Mormon upbringing that most of us would find bizarre. She nevertheless makes her story universally relatable by focusing on her deep attachment to family. Readers understand why it was so hard for her to break free of her towering, conspiracy-fueled father; resourceful yet compliant mother; and smart but abusive brother. Westover survives nearly insurmountable setbacks, or “pullbacks,” to home by facing the disappointments and embodying the strengths of those who raised her: her father’s determination, her mother’s faith, and her brother’s resolve. That the unschooled girl emerges as an intelligent and above all empathic woman is a testimony to the resilience of love and the power of truth. As a fiction writer who welcomes the challenge of making an unlikable character sympathetic (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I applaud Westover’s success in accomplishing this feat with her family.
