A review by atlas_shruggs
Educated by Tara Westover

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I find rating nonfiction works to be quite challenging, I can't help but ask myself what makes me qualified to judge someone's life story. Therefore I've decided to judge this mostly on how it made me feel and how I enjoyed the writing. Westover's story is overall a very moving one and it's quite baffling for me, a European, to imagine her living such a life in such recent times. The way she writes about her life is absolutely beautiful and while some readers have complained over the varied pacing I found it added more realism to the story as in real life some events move at the speed of light, while others do not. Her years at Buck's Peak felt languid and dreamlike, transitioning into a nightmare at times. In contrast her life at university went by quickly as her mind expanded and she tried to learn everything she could.
I also appreciated Westover's honesty in writing this book but in the acknowledgements and notes on the text she admits that her memories are not complete and the book is therefore comprised of her memories as well as others. As human memory is fickle this is usually what happens with autobiographical writing and I appreciate that she acknowledged it.