Educated by Tara Westover has been applauded and praised everywhere I have seen it, so I knew I had to pick the book up.

The book is a memoir written by Tara Westover about her life growing up with her survivalist parents who did not believe in formalised education, going to hospitals, taking medication and lived a life off the grid. Tara Westover's birth wasn't registered until she was 9 years old, and even then her parents could not agree upon a date of her birth. Throughout her childhood she had limited access to books, to healthcare, to people outside of her family; she lived with many brothers, one who was abusive to her. Eventually she managed to pass her ACT test and go to college, and eventually onto Cambridge to do her PhD by sheer resilience and internal strength.

"What a person knows about the past is limited and will always be limited to what they are told by others."

The book is an interesting look at how we learn, how we absorb information and knowledge from our family and our surroundings. However, I think some elements of this book should still be considered with scepticism despite how much I enjoyed and thought this book had so much to offer. Westover will have ultimately been influenced by her late entrance to education and her upbringing subconsciously. Therefore, whilst she may have attempted to challenge her bias and her thought processes; there will a level of bias she cannot remove, as she writes about her family that will have been guided by her emotions, her complex upbringing. This means whilst her thoughts are thoughtful and contemplative they cannot be considered to be the ultimate conclusion on the situation. This is not to dismiss the claims she makes about her family as it is clear there was abuse, neglect and hurt in her relationships. However, without viewpoints from all sides of her family, her viewpoint is driven by this estrangement, by the history of pain and abuse. I am always consciously aware of how the brain can block, alter, and subdue thoughts of those periods in a way you may not expect. I do think that Westover in places acknowledges that her memory may not always have been clear, especially when she was a child, but I think it's something to remember when considering the book. I think this is especially acute given the quote about history, and how our knowledge is limited by what we are told.

Despite this, Tara Westover has an outstanding and insightful exploration of how we learn, how we absorb knowledge and the intricacies of things we take for granted; as someone who has grown up going to school, in a loving family and with parents that provided me with a lot of enrichment when I was a child, it's easy how much I have overlooked my path in education. I knew that you need to use textbooks to pass exams, I knew how to read and write from being a child, I knew what the Holocaust was, I knew to wash my hands after going to the bathroom. So many things that I do on a daily basis, that I have never considered how the structures of education instilled these practices and the understanding in my brain.

"I could tolerate any form of cruelty but kindness."

Tara Westover's Educated was touching on a very deep level as she spoke about the pain of her life, and the fractious rift within her family now. Despite everything that had happened, her parents and siblings will still be her family and it is difficult to close off that interest, that connection to somebody who is part of your blood. I was entirely astounded by the depth and insightfulness that Westover continued to offer throughout the whole book. I initially struggled to connect with her voice (as I listened to the audiobook), however, as the book continued I became fully immersed in her story. I think for me there is great value in listening to someone's memoir told from their own voice. Overall, I was moved, inspired and driven to contemplation by this book and it will stick with me for sure.