This is such a bizarre story. Tara Westover, who is just 31 years old, was born and raised in rural Idaho. She is the youngest of seven kids whose parents’ belief in an odd, twisted form of Mormonism, dictated every aspect of life. Tara had no birth certificate, never went to school and had no contact with the health system. Her father, convinced the ‘feds’ were out to get them, insisted on a survivalist mentality and the family spent a great deal of time preparing for the End of Days. Tara’s journey out of this environment, into the world of college in Utah, Cambridge and Harvard is remarkable. The practical obstacles on their own seem insurmountable, let alone the emotional and psychological ones.
Tara’s love for her family and her home shine through, even as she recalls the often damaging, indeed abusive, events of her life. In the end she comes to realize that the work she had to do to succeed in the formal education system was nothing compared to the effort it took to understand and survive her upbringing.
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