Educated is a memoir by the American author Tara Westover. Westover recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college, and emphasizes the importance of education in enlarging her world.
Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.
As of the September 13, 2020, issue of The New York Times, the book had spent 132 consecutive weeks on the Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list. It won a 2019 Alex Award and was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Westover is raised in isolation in Buck's Peak, Idaho by her parents, pseudonymously referred to as Gene and Faye Westover respectively. Gene was paranoid about hospitals, public education, and the government, partially due to the siege at Ruby Ridge. Faye consequently homeschools the Westover children.
