Educated
by Tara Westover
★ Top 25 book of 2018 · #11 on Best Books of 2018
This memoir follows a woman raised in a survivalist family in the Idaho mountains who had no formal schooling. She ends up earning a history PhD at Cambridge while torn between learning and loyalty.
Best for: Readers who value true stories about self-education and breaking from family expectations
Educated is #11 on BookWard's Best Books of 2018, out of 59 2018 books that cleared our data bar.
What Educated is about
Tara Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho, in a survivalist Mormon household that kept her far from the ordinary structures of school and the wider world. She started college at seventeen with no formal education behind her, and went on to complete a PhD in history at Cambridge.
This memoir follows that distance and what it cost her. Westover writes about learning to want more than her family's world offered, and about the pull between her hunger to learn and her loyalty to her father. Education here is not a credential but a way of widening what a person can see. It is a harrowing, reflective account, and it will speak to anyone who has had to leave something behind in order to grow, or who wonders what a family owes us and what we owe it.
Educated on the Best Books of 2018
Educated came out in 2018. Of the 59 books first published in 2018 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #11 on our Best Books of 2018 list.
Why it made the list: 543 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.5 out of 5 (22 ratings); 22 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2018 list
- Verity Colleen Hoover, #9
- Restore Me Tahereh Mafi, #10
- All Your Perfects Colleen Hoover, #12
- The Burning Maze Rick Riordan, #13
See all Best Books of 2018 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2017 Best Books of 2019.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 473 want to read it, 22 are reading it now and 48 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 from 22 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 71 | 55% |
| Reader love | 83 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 76 | 20% |
Questions about Educated
When was Educated published?
Educated by Tara Westover was first published in 2018.
Was Educated one of the best books of 2018?
Educated is #11 on BookWard's Best Books of 2018, out of 59 2018 books that cleared our data bar. 543 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.5 out of 5 (22 ratings); 22 are reading it right now.
Why is Educated on the Best Books of 2018 list?
543 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.5 out of 5 (22 ratings); 22 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 2018
- Heartstopper, Volume 1 Alice Oseman, #1
- Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens, #2
- The Laws of Human Nature Robert Greene, #3
- Atomic Habits James Clear, #4
- Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott, #5
- Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell, #6
See the full Best Books of 2018, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
Find your own best books
Add what you have read, rate it, and BookWard will recommend what to read next.
Free while in beta. No credit card needed.