Educated
2018 · Tara Westover · 334 pages · Non-Fiction
Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in Idaho and eventually earning a PhD from Cambridge is one of the most gripping non-fiction narratives published in recent years. The writing is controlled and precise, rendering scenes of domestic danger and intellectual awakening with equal vividness. Westover doesn't moralize about her family or her choices, and that restraint gives the book its power. Some readers question the reliability of memory in a book that reconstructs dialogue and scenes from childhood. Others find the later academic chapters less compelling than the harrowing early sections. But as a story about what it means to educate yourself out of one world and into another, and what you lose in the process, it's unforgettable.