But then I read a book like The Glass Castle (you can read that review here), or now, Educated and I realize, yeah that's mostly true, except when it's not and parents make choices so fundamentally flawed that it's is or is almost criminal in nature.
Neglect. Growing up in Southern Idaho, Tara and her siblings were given access to text books but no instruction to read them. Extremely mistrustful of the government and paranoid about the ramifications of being "dependent" on the government, the parents don't even apply for birth certificates for Tara and her younger siblings. From an early age, the children are expected to assist their father in the junkyard at the base of the property. Metal scrapping in dangerous conditions thanks to their father's love of shortcuts and eschewing of safety precautions, many of the children are deeply injured. Any decision to work elsewhere is seen as a betrayal of the family.
So when Tara decides she wants more in terms of education, she has to figure it all out herself. She takes the ACT and fakes her way into BYU claiming she completed "home school". The first year is a rough education for Tara who was unaware even of what the word "Holocaust" meant. And she comes to realize some of the deeply troubling beliefs held by her father and the pervasive racism it engenders at home.
Tara manages to go on and graduate from BYU with a prestigious Gates Scholarship to Cambridge University in England. And she does this all while trying to inform her parents that her older brother was physically and emotionally abusive toward her. Her parents refuse to acknowledge this truth and a rift forms. It's troubling and upsetting and even today far from over.
There's something about a memoir that really reaches into the shared humanity of us all and life can sometimes be stranger than fiction. I wish Tara the best and hope she continues on a path of healing.
4.5/5
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