Saturday, March 31, 2018

Educated - Tara Westover

This biography tells the story of Tara Westover, who is bought up on a rural Utah mountain with her family.  Her father has a mistrust of the government, hospitals and doctors,  and schools and instead the kids are sent to work  in the family business on the scrapyard.  So Tara is 17 before she sets foot in a school, and has to question all the things that her family have taught her.

After studying for herself, she applies to college and  enters a whole new world, while life on the mountain continues, and every time she returns she is thrust back into the turmoil.  Most of the story is about the conflict between Tara and her father and one of her brothers, who is often unpredictable and violent.  I really struggled with how the mistrust of medicine and doctors, meant that the family treated all their injuries with oils and tinctures.  That they would not seek assistance even when the mother had a brain injury and the father suffered significant third degree burns.  Pure craziness.  3/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

Yes, questioning modern medicine's practices is fine, but one has to have common sense, and a need to help friends and family that is greater than one's suspicions.