Binding: hardcover
By Tara Westover
Format: 16.23x 24.2cm
Pages: 334 pages / volume
Language: English
IS BN：9780399590504
Publishing House: Random House
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Content introduction
In 1986, Tara Westover was born into a Mormon survivalist family in Idaho, USA. She grew up in the mountains with seven children. Her parents dont believe in any public institutions, dont give birth certificates to their children, dont send their children to school, and never go to the hospital. Even if there is a car accident and serious burns, they only use grass Yao to treat them at home. Before the age of 17, almost all her knowledge of the world came from her father. As a Jew, she knew nothing about the Holocaust during World War II, or even the word "massacre".
At the age of 17, there was an example of her brother Tyler. Inspired by a certain force in her heart, she made great efforts and was admitted to Brigham Young University through self-study. Later, she won the gates scholarship * * and went to Cambridge University for further study, where she received her masters and doctoral degrees.
This book is her autobiography, in which she records the love and harm brought to her by her family. In the process of education, she constantly reflected on her growth experience and improved her understanding of family and self. During this period, she also experienced a lot of self doubt, conflict and tear with her family. At the end of the book, she basically realized her acceptance of herself and obtained inner peace; But unfortunately, she has not been able to reach a settlement with her parents. Maybe Z eventually she will lose her family.
Tara is my age. Although her origin and growth experience are not similar to mine, her story still makes me deeply moved, one is about family and the other is about education.
Family is a persons inner Z deep complex. No matter what kind of cognition you later have about it and how you deviate from it, the brand it engraves on you will never go away, and you will never let go of your desire for recognition and acceptance from it.
The Z uncomfortable part of the book is the process of Tara and her family gradually tearing apart. Thats not because she went to college, but because of the abuse of her brother Shawn and the favoritism and concealment of her parents. She didnt believe and was unwilling. She opened her heart to her family again and again and asked for help in exchange for her fathers anger and her mothers insincerity. Z later, her mother even didnt hesitate to declare to all her relatives and friends that Tara was under the control of the devil and her words were not worth believing.
I can understand her reluctance to let go. Even in the view of outsiders, there should have been some warm times. More importantly, love from parents is a natural desire. It brings people a great sense of security and strength, and makes people believe that they are not lonely and valuable in this world. Its not easy to let go of this desire - first you have to admit that your parents may not love you so much (they cant love you unconditionally), and then you have to believe that its not your problem and doesnt mean you dont deserve to be loved. This requires not only the courage to face loneliness, but also strong self-awareness and acceptance.
Fortunately, Tara gained such power from her education.
Taras study process seems to me very beautiful. When she entered the University, she was like a piece of white paper. When the whole university course was placed in front of her, her choice was entirely out of curiosity and thirst for knowledge. No one had been able to answer her confusion in the process of growing up. Now, under the guidance of instinct, she gropes and travels in a strange jungle of knowledge. She chooses to re understand the world, her ethnic group, family and herself through courses such as history, art, music and psychology. This is an extremely romantic process. Of course, in this process, she has received the help of many people and made extraordinary efforts. In the face of difficulties, her perseverance comes from her family.
Education has opened another world for Tara, making her an unimaginable person when she was a child, and also enabling her to obtain inner peace. She knows that whether it is roofer Westover or doctor Westover, she is still herself. When her parents asked her to forget Shawns abuse and admit that she was tempted by the devil in exchange for a family hug, education gave her the courage and strength to refuse.
As she said at the end of the book: since then, the decisions I made no longer belong to the past me, it was a new choice I made. You can say many things about it: change, deterioration, mistake, betrayal. And I think this is education.
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