About the book
Tara Westover, raised in a survivalist Mormon family in the Idaho mountains, had no formal schooling when she first entered a classroom at 17. Her 2018 memoir describes a father who distrusted hospitals, public schools and the government, a mother who taught the children at home, and an older brother whose violence no one stopped. Urged on by another brother, she prepared for the ACT and won a place at Brigham Young University. Her studies later took her to Harvard and to Cambridge, where she completed a PhD in history, and the book follows her struggle to reconcile that learning with her father's world. It won a 2019 Alex Award.
Barack Obama put it on his best books of 2018 list on Facebook, and Bill Gates said Westover writes so well that her story made him reflect on his own life. Michelle Obama called it an engrossing read and a fresh look at what an education can do.
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This book has 4 recommendations
Bill Gates (Founder/Microsoft)
Tara never went to school or visited a doctor until she left home at 17. I never thought I’d relate to a story about growing up in a Mormon survivalist household, but she’s such a good writer that she got me to reflect on my own life while reading about her extreme childhood. Melinda and I loved this memoir of a young woman whose thirst for learning was so strong that she ended up getting a Ph.D. from Cambridge University.
Recommended by Barack Obama (Former USA President)
Source: Barack Obama on Facebook
Anant Jain (Co-Founder/CommonLounge)
It’s an amazing memoir of growing up as a survivalist in the mountains of Idaho and stepping into a classroom for the first time as a seventeen-year-old.
It’s an engrossing read, a fresh perspective on the power of an education, and it’s also a testament to the way grit and resilience can shape our lives.
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