by Tara Westover
First sentence: “I’m standing on the red railway car that sits abandoned next to the barn.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: February 20, 2018
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some harrowing scenes of abuse and some mild swearing (no f-bombs). It will be in the biography section of the bookstore, but I think any junior or senior in high school may be interested in it.

I was handed this book because I’m the Mormon on staff, and because Westover grew up Mormon, in Idaho, everyone just assumed I needed to read it. Having finished it, I’m here to say that it’s not for those of us who are Mormon (though I think we’ll see some inherent criticisms of our culture, that others might miss), but it’s for everyone, in the way The Glass Castle is for everyone. Westover’s story is remarkable.

The basics are these: she grew up on a mountain in Idaho, the child of a fundamentalist/survivalist father who used religion as the reason to spurn the government. She was a wild child, helping out in the junkyard, avoiding books, until her older brother, Tyler, left and went to college. That spurred something in her, and she tried to go to school (they were all nominally “homeschooled”, which is code for “there are scriptures lying around the house if you choose to read them”) but consistently fell back into old habits. It wasn’t until she began being physically abused by her older brother that she felt a need to leave. She got into BYU (she studied for the ACT, and managed to get a good enough score), and once there learned just how far from “normal” her family was.

It’s a remarkable journey, not just because Westover got “out” of the situation she was in (though there really isn’t a resolution with her abusive brother, in the end, which while disappointing in a narrative setting, makes sense), but because of her reflections on education, class, money, religion, and the government. It’s an interesting line she walked, between her family and the education she received, first at BYU and then at Cambridge, but it is made so by her writing, her open, honest (sometimes brutally so) reflections on not just her family (she points no fingers) but also herself. This book feels like a work of therapy; like Westover needed to write it to understand herself, and by sharing it with the rest of us, we may understand not just her family, but ourselves as well.

I’m not sure remarkable is the best word for it. I was caught up in the story, my breath taken away (as a mother I was shocked and appalled: how COULD they let these things happen to their daughter!) and I was in awe that she found a way for herself.

Excellent.