EDUCATED BY TARA WESTOVER

Educated by Tara Westover is a memoir of her upbringing in a crazy pack of family members who believe only in the invincible power of God and Angels. Her parents are unacceptably God fearing which results in not getting their children immunized, not visiting doctors when sick, not enrolling their kids in school, not letting them do what they want and constantly bound by the fear of punishment if they do anything not accepted by the religion. They hate the government for they 'think' that the government establishes their power on people if the people use any facilities provided by the government. They loathe any kind of government assistance.They stay at a far away hill to hide from the Government and avoid any kind of entry to the 'normal' world.The worst part is they don't even register the birth of their children. All the children are raised to believe that their parents are doing right and there is nothing wrong in all of the above. Their father forces them to work in the junkyard scraping metals and their mother wants the girls to learn the herbal ways of medications and healing. The kids are denied an opportunity to get education and be in the mainstream. Getting education is considered sinful. The members of the family, Tara's siblings and her mother all are submissive when it comes to her father's 'verdict'. Sometimes their father becomes too defensive in the name of God and religion. But no one is allowed to question his way of thought.

Tara lives 17 years of her life in the same way as chalked out by her father. But then she decides to find a way to get educated. It's very difficult for her to enter the high school as she never went to school and has never got formal education. She has only a introduction to basic books and math, and knows how to scrap metals and prepare tinctures and herbal concoctions under the label of homeschooling. But Tara is determined to step into the new world. Many a times she is at the crossroads of being a 'good' daughter of the family or diving into the totally unknown world of education, hope, and more important finding a way from ignorance, self doubt, worthlessness. She takes a latter path to get into the esteemed colleges of the world to pursue Doctorate. Finally she is Tara who finds a way of enlightenment through education.

This book was on my TBR since I heard someone bragging about it on bookstagram. But what compelled me to pick up asap is that I saw Bill Gates review this book on Goodreads.