This autobiography, published last year, is very well
written and I found it inspiring reading. It questions the importance of early
education and up-bringing in achieving academic success. The author was born in
Idaho in 1986. Her family lived in a rural area, and was dominated by her
father, who was a fundamentalist Mormon with extreme ideas, even by his Mormon
neighbours’ standards. Tara’s mother, also a Mormon, was a community midwife
and herbalist. The state was so distrusted that the Westover children had no
formal education. Conventional medical care, even for serious injuries, was
shunned and Tara’s birth was not registered. Needless to say, the children were
not vaccinated. Father made his living as a scrap metal dealer and builder of
barns etc. He hoarded food and ammunition in anticipation of the imminent “End
of Days”. In spite of this unpromising environment, and the abuse she
experienced, Tara managed to educate herself, and to her credit, and that of a
few academics who were open-minded enough to discount her unconventional
upbringing, she got herself to Brigham Young University, enabling her to embark
on an astonishingly successful academic career.
Lawrence Youlten
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