Educated: A Memoir

Tara Westover’s 2018 memoir, Educated, tells the story of her journey to obtain an education. Westover is the youngest of seven children who grew up in the mountains of southwest Idaho in a radical Mormon family in the late 1980s and 1990s. From an early age, Westover knew that her family was not like other families because hers did not send the children to school, did not visit doctors’ offices or hospitals, and was not issued birth certificates. Westover’s world was the mountain in Idaho where she grew up until Brigham Young University accepted her at 16 years old. Getting into college started her down a path to understanding of home, herself, and the world through her education.

By its nature, a memoir is a representation of the author’s impressions and memories of his or her past. As a memoir, Educated is written in the first person perspective, which means its told from Westover’s point of view. Consequently, the reader absorbs Westover’s memories and experiences as she describes them as an adult in the present. Although the exact date of certain events can be vague in Westover’s memoir, she tells the story of her life chronologically, starting with her memories from when she was 7 years old and tracing them up through the recent past, when she completed her PhD at the age of 27 and began her post-graduate education.