"Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn’t exist. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in hospitals.
As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so she discovered both the transformative power of education, and the price she had to pay for it.”
I loved the books opening chapter, describing the Indian Princess, the mountain upon which Tara grew up beside and the fields surrounding it:
“the wheat field is a corps de ballet, each stem following all the rest in bursts of movement, a million ballerinas bending, one after the other, as great gales dent their golden heads. The shape of that dent lasts only a moment, and is as close as anyone gets to seeing the wind”
In this period of Brexit, global warming and a relentless quest for more, Tara’s opener, of being educated in the ways of the mountain, appears to many, idyllic – the dream in fact. Yet this idyll was a backdrop to a brutal upbringing. Difficult to read, gory and to top it all off, TRUE.
We discussed in depth Tara's family. Particularly her mother, thinking her a very contrary character (I say character but she is a real person!) At times secretly encouraging Tara – the dancing, the whispered supportive words. Yet when Tara seemed to need her most, she would invert and defer to her husband, leaving Tara stranded. The midwifery was fascinating to read about and her belief in tinctures. Thank God for the tinctures as the family suffered some horrific injuries! As ineffective as they may be, goodness knows what they would have done without them. Whilst never hinted at in the book, we did wonder whether Tara’s mother was subjected to violence. What made her stick to her husband’s side through mental illness, physical illness and family strife?
The violence when it came was shocking. As a result, it would have been very easy for Tara to have painted her family, particularly her father in a horrible light. Yet we all thought she was very fair in her portrayal and showed sensitivity when describing their darkest moments. Whereas some of the group couldn't get away with the footnotes or references to the fact she was paraphrasing certain emails, I understood them to be little allowances to a family, who really, deserved none.
Just how much a lack of education can effect you was staggering to read. Imagine not knowing about the holocaust! We naturally spent time discussing the education system, midwifery and Mormonism and realised we knew very little about all three!
Despite being described as 'misery porn' by one of the group (it was brutal at times) the ending was decidedly upbeat and the quality of writing high. Tara is clearly not at the end of her story, there may never be a ‘happy’ ever after, yet Tara ended the book beautifully with her last Chapter. Possibly my favourite of all. I’m so pleased it was suggested to me as I never would have read it yet I thoroughly enjoyed it.
We awarded it 6.7 with a fair few 8s and 9s thrown in.
Next book is All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
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