Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Educated - Tara Westover

Quite a powerful ending to the year with this read.  A 30-something woman recounts her upbringing in a fundamentalist Mormon home where the children's births are registered and they don't go to school.  Her father and brother are abusive and her mother and obedient herbalist healer.  Tara goes on to a different mainstream life by obtaining an education, getting a PhD in intellectual history.

Initially I felt skeptical of the story because of the extreme beliefs and actions described and because it was the memories of a child being described by an adult.  Her matter of fact recounts of the injuries endured by her family members and her own perspective years later seem cold and unfeeling, making me wonder if (or when) she will be able to express her own emotions.   She is still estranged from her parents and two of her six siblings and expresses a longing for reconciliation.  This story is not over.

Quote:
p 111. "[after her brother hurts her wrist] This moment would define my memory of that night, and of the many nights like it, for a decade.  In it I saw myself as unbreakable, as tender as stone.  At first I merely believed this, until one day it became the truth...because nothing affected me.  I didn't understand how morbidly right I was.  How I had hollowed myself out.  For all my obsessing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me, that was the effect."

Published: 2018  Read: December 2019  Genre: Memoir

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