Anne Marie Pongonthara (11) STAFF REPORTER
Our story is set on the fringes of US society, rural Idaho. Areas that rarely come up in conversations and even less visited by people from the rest of the country. Here folks live in fear of any change in societal norms and parting from cultural traditions. Superstition and conspiracy are their primary source of solace, and the federal government is perceived as their mortal enemy. As ludicrous as it might seem; to a young Tara Westover, this was life.
“Educated” , a memoir by our protagonist, follows her life as the seventh child of her Mormon survivalist parents, paranoid of government raids on their remote mountain home and tethered to a belief of an impending apocalypse at the dawn of the 21st century. Memories of stockpiling food, weapons and supplies in wait of the “end days” consumed seven-year old Tara’s mind and established themselves as a harsh reality; later to be challenged with the gift of an education.
Her father Gene claimed prophetic powers and owned a scrap yard housing hazardous machinery where he used his children for labour. To no surprise, Westover recounts myriad occasions featuring near fatal workplace injuries; whole body burns, gashed legs, severe concussions, all of which were treated in an ad hoc manner without a single visit to a hospital due to a lack of trust in the healthcare system. In the absence of medical personnel, their mother Faye acted as a doctor figure, operating as an unlicensed midwife in the area and a herbal healer stating that “God spoke through her fingers”. Though that may seem enough cause for alarm, her youth was filled with physical abuse from her older brother, Shawn and a continuous struggle against the tightening grip of control her parents had over her life.
With the encouragement and help of her eldest brother, Westover self-studied algebra (as she was supposedly home schooled; majority of her siblings taken out of school at a young age) and prepared enough for the ACT’s, obtaining a high enough score to receive acceptance to Brigham Young University. At the age of 17, Westover stepped into a classroom for the first time. Her experiences at Brigham dispelled her ignorance on prominent events in history such as the Holocaust, highlighting the isolation she suffered in childhood.
The tadalafil for women gallbladder performs important tasks that affect the body’s overall energy. It carries Sildenafil citrate inside it which ensures that the blood reaching the destined organs cheap viagra prices is purufied. Vision changes, for example, expanded affectability to light, smudged vision, or inconvenience telling blue and purchase cialis online amerikabulteni.com green colors separated may additionally happen. Kamagra is one among some wonderful inventions transforming male sexual health and offering way to make life of patients easier. online cialis saleThough her beginnings were tough, Westover surprised all, ultimately succeeding in all of her classes, making her way to England for a fellowship at Cambridge University, then on to Harvard for another fellowship and back again to Cambridge for her PhD.
However, great successes came at a great cost. The more knowledge Westover accumulated, the greater she understood how deranged her early life was. The tightly constricting boundaries placed upon her since childhood began to unravel as armed with her freedom of thought and knowledge, she began asking increasingly difficult questions ending in the eventual estrangement from half her family.
No matter her wins or losses whilst being part of such a family, Westover’s writing evokes all the chaotic feelings of life, maybe on a more extreme level but all are there nonetheless. She would never forget the family who raised her and yes, she did love them. Westover’s education however, helped develop her own individual outlook on life. As she so succinctly states, “An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.”
In my opinion, “Educated” has the power to capture the imagination of any reader, no matter their preferred genre and is a book definitely worth a read.
