Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book, titled Educated, is not about getting educated. It is a personal saga about childhood abuse, resentment and political undertones of animosity towards the extreme right. Tara describes in great detail each member of her family and how they each affected her. I believe she wrote honestly - how "she" remembers her childhood. However, for me - skepticism started to creep in as I continued reading this book. Tara presents her family as ignorant, cruel and backwards. Yet three of the children from this family earned PhDs. Her mother currently has a multi-million dollar essential oils business (online). In the book Tara doubts her parents, who live "off the grid," have ever paid taxes - yet she goes home and picks up her parent's tax returns so that she can apply for an education grant. Right there, it is obvious how Tara's perception of her parent's extreme anti-social, anti-government and paranoid lifestyle is exaggerated. Nobody living off the grid in the extreme way which she describes throughout the book, files their taxes and takes a tax refund from the government each year... This book has interesting introspection, and I don't think it is as unrelatable as Tara seems to think. Most people feel out of place and have "family secrets" they feel they cover up. Sadly, this book is not encouraging or inspiring, but dark and depressing till the end. Series of emotional tragedies repeat itself over and over again throughout the book, to the point of eye rolling. In the end, I didn't feel uplifted - just angry at everybody in the book.