Tara Westover's memoir about the challenges and processes of pursuing an education is uniquely and captivatingly written. He cleverly associates a lot of knowledge very beautifully.
Tara comes from a 'weird' Mormon family, even in a country as modern and democratic as the United States. His father was a manual labor junk collector in the mountains of Idaho, Utah. While her mother is an assistant midwife. Tara is the youngest of seven siblings.
All seven were born at home -- not in a maternity hospital -- and six of them did not have birth certificates. All family members never saw a doctor and did not take formal basic education because his father considered the government to be a deviant institution and should always be opposed.
Tara grew up in a house where violence, trauma and forced labor were the daily harsh rules of the father. So much had happened to Tara and her sister that she was determined to get out and go to any school that would accept her, trying to imagine the future, filling her classroom days and homework.
When Tara told her father that she was planning to go to college, she said it was a woman's place at home, learning about herbs which in her father's words was "God's Pharmacy."
Tara loves school so she doesn't become a worldly oriented girl, she wrote in her diary. At first he wanted to study music so he could lead a church choir, but later he became interested in the study of geography, comparative politics and Jewish history.
To stay in school, she had to work babysitting and taking care of her employer's meals. He works at his boss's house while being allowed to learn the piano, learn to dance. He also had to self-taught algebra and trigonometry in order to enter Brigham Young University.
Tara learned to read and write from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's sermons, and library books at Brigham Young Academy.
She was then able to continue his studies at Cambridge University in an extraordinary manner and obtained a doctorate in intellectual history. At Cambridge, Tara is tutored by Jonathan Steinberg, a professor who specializes in European history, especially the "holocaust", where Tara never understood the word 'holocaust' before she went to college.
We then learn of the seven Westover brothers three of whom left home, earning a Ph.D. Three doctoral degrees in one family is certainly very great even for the general family.
Tara's process of self-discovery through this intellectual activity is truly captivating and uplifting. This is her first book and we can't wait for the next by the talented writer, Tara Westover, a girl from outback Idaho.
Lead image from pxfuel.com