A harrowing autobiography, Westover’s ‘Educated’ recounts the isolated childhood of a young girl, Tara, growing up in a world where she does not exist… at least in the eyes of Idaho State.

Lacking medical records, a birth certificate and even formal education, the Westover family’s lives are cocooned within their mountainous Mormon community and are centred not around the emotional development of their children, but instead around their religious identities manipulated by the inevitable End of Days when all of humanity will be judged for their actions in life.

The very novel itself radiates the darkened atmosphere that clouds the narrator’s recounts of the normalised depravities that litter her childhood. The lack of milk on her cereal as such a luxury is condemned.

The chasm between herself and the potential friendships that may have once bloomed had it not been for the overbearing interventions of her manipulative father. The beatings. The bullying. The lies - all justified by an extremist’s take on the keys to eternal paradise.

Observed only by the surrounding wilderness and the omniscient princess on the mountain (a face carved out of rock and wildflowers that governs over Tara’s infancy and continues to percolate her later life), Tara and her 6 older siblings are constantly forced to stare the jarring prospect of death in the face through the struggles and injuries that occur equally within the household and the untameable landscape that surrounds it.

As a result, Westover masterfully depicts the true extent of life in isolation in such a way that the reader is forced to contemplate whether physical exposure to danger may in fact be a less daunting prospect than the incessant need for social self-containment that is so heavily enforced within the family circle.

As realisation of the sinister underpinnings of the Westover family’s ‘protection’ begins to dawn upon Tara, she starts to gradually loosen the domesticated constraints imposed upon her.

Beginning with the novelty of wearing lipstick (for which she repeatedly suffers at the hands of her brother, Shawn), Tara witnesses the first glimpses of a life outside of the ranch, prompting her to make the monumental step towards gaining her own voice through self-enrolment at Bringham Young University from which she gains a scholarship to Cambridge University, where she gains a PhD.

It is perhaps here that a reader first tastes the sugary prospect of hope for the main character, as she slowly but surely accepts aspects of life previously condemned: friendship, aid, an education.

Still burdened by her troubled past, we see a once fragile and bruised child begin to question the whole notion of truth, both according to others and to herself. Yet the way in which Westover presents such transition is proof of the biting sense of realism that looms ever-present over the novel.

This degree of external liberation does not render Tara free from her ongoing internal conflict- a refreshing contrast to the classic ‘rags to riches’ narrative formula. Instead, the spectres of her tainted life still haunt Tara, emphasising both the strength and weakness of human nature.

They teach that – no matter how strongly we may try to sever them – the ties of the past are almost indestructible.

Throughout the enduring wrestle between her heart and head, Tara frequently arrives at the same crossroads: to turn away from a life of sin previously demonised by her father, or to turn away from a life of true evil adopted by the same man.

Such a decision equally echoes in the minds of readers, as Westover simultaneously dances with the prospect of hope and delves into the bleak truth that Tara may never truly escape her childhood.

Despite the book’s repeated questioning of the foundations of belief and hatred, Westover abstains from exercising a potentially distasteful and bias depiction of religious extremism. Instead of attacking her own attackers through critiquing this community, the overwhelming message of the novel is that of forgiving rather than forgetting and is perhaps the jewel in the crown of the entire piece.

Different perspectives and opinions of what is right and wrong are so intricately woven that the finished product is not that of protest but is instead of promotion of the right to a voice; the right to understand; the right to an education.

‘Educated’ is a sheer literary triumph and is an ultimately rewarding read that forces any reader to revisit their own morals and question the foundations on which they are formed.

Westover proves of the importance of past pain, as only through the acceptance of who we once were can we truly become who we want to be.

Having been named the New York Times Bestseller for 2018, this story really is a must-read, with its lasting message of the unwavering power of love amid a world plagued with hatred being a true inspiration to all.

If Westover’s following works are anywhere near as captivating as her first, we are in for a real treat. Watch this space.