Educated:A Memoir by Tara Westover is the best memoir Ive read since The Glass Castle. Raised in Idaho by a family of survivalists who stockpiled food and guns, preparing for the end of the world, never letting their kids go to the doctor or go to school, Westover didn’t even have a birth certificate until she was 9 years old. Her Father was a bi-polar owner of a scrapyard, her Mother a midwife and healer, her older brother was violent and abusive, Westover was 17 years old before she ever went to school.

These few facts don’t begin to convey the power of this story, of Westover’s incredible life and how she found a way out of an abusive and dangerous situation, yet still always longed to return to her family. The power of family and place is evident in every page of this book and the strength it took for Westover to become her own person with her own thoughts, while her family tried to convince everyone she was crazy is astonishing. The most incredibly honest memoir I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended.