Finished: Educated: A Memoir (Westover) A memoir about the life of Tara Westover, who lives on a mountain with her survivalist family. She is kept out of school by her domineering father and submissive mother, who don't believe in hospitals, public schools, or the government. She is raised helping her father scrap sheet metal for his business and is constantly put in dangerous situations. She is also raised with her father lecturing from the Mormon scriptures. One of her big brothers is physically and emotionally abusive to the point of nearly killing her a few times. When one of her older brothers goes to college and encourages Tara to defy her father and go to school, Tara dares to begin dreaming of getting an education at the age of 17. She passes a college entrance exam and heads to BYU where she finally learns that the world is far different than she'd been taught. For instance, she alienates herself and people think she's being a racist when she asks out loud in History class what the Holocaust was. She truly had never heard of it! More than just getting a formal education, Tara is educated in social behavior. She can't always handle trying to be like everyone else because she has been so beat down at home. She has very little self-worth, and when she finally confronts her parents about her brother's abusive behavior, which he often did right in front of them, they deny it and insist that she either deny it too and be "cleansed of the devil inside her" or not be welcome in the family. Tara goes on to get her college degree at BYU, and with the help of one kind professor who sees her potential, she gets into Cambridge in England and gets her Masters there, as well as her PhD. She also spends a year as a fellow at Harvard. Those years are not easy for her, though. She had immense trouble opening up to friends and letting them know of her past. And, she is so affected by her family's actions that she nearly fails out of her PhD program until she can finally face herself and realize she is not the problem. She does this with the help of both a therapist and the same brother who insisted she get away and get into college. He believes her about the abusive brother, and he lets the family knows he's on her side as well. It's honestly a very distressing tale of how she got where she is. She needed years of therapy (and maybe still does?) It is so very inspiring, though, that she was able to persevere against the worst odds, pull herself out of the survivalist mentality that had been beaten into her and become an educated, functioning, productive adult. A good book, but it took me a long time to read because it was so hard to read about all her hardships and her lack of self-worth.