Educated by Tara Westover

other girls knew it. I looked in the mirror at our reflection, at the twelve girls, sleek and shiny, pirouett ...

wearing, she will stay home.” On the Wednesday after Caroline called Mother, I arrived at Papa Jay’s a ...

The music ended. The girls glared at me as we left the stage—I had ruined the performance—but I could barely ...

that followed she searched for something else I could do, something Dad wouldn’t forbid. She’d noticed th ...

The song finished and I returned to our pew. A prayer was offered to close the service, then the crowd ...

The summer I sang the lead for Annie it was 1999. My father was in serious preparedness mode. Not since ...

sealed, labeled, and stored away in a root cellar Dad had dug out in the field. The entrance was concealed ...

Everyone laughed. I’d memorized all my lines, but at rehearsals I sat alone, pretending to study my black bind ...

tickets for the next night. It was all he talked about that Sunday in church. Not doctors, or the Illuminati, o ...

didn’t know, laughing with a group of public school kids, wearing big white shoes, khaki shorts and a ...

hear Dad’s reply when I asked what the gun was for. “Defense,” he said. The next night I had a rehea ...

Everyone at church had read the prophecies; they knew the Days of Abomination were coming. But still they’ ...

The longer I sat motionless, breathing deeply, trying to inhale the last scent of the fallen world, the ...

When January 1 dawned like any other morning, it broke Dad’s spirit. He never again mentioned Y2K ...

was giving way. I didn’t see any. She was the same taut, undefeated woman. The rest of the trip blurs ...

— I AWOKE TO BLACKNESS. Something ice-cold was running down my back. We’re in a lake! I thought. Some ...

— A FEW DAYS AFTER the crash, my neck froze. I awoke one morning and it wouldn’t move. It didn’t hurt, ...

feet. It was odd finding him in the house, this brother who was nearly a stranger to me. People in town seemed ...

ceiling. I could cock my head to tease Richard. Seated on the couch, I could turn to smile at th ...

When Grandpa-down-the-hill was a young man, there’d been herds of livestock spread across the mountain, ...