10 Book Club Questions for Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (FREE Printable Guide)

Your book club with love these thought provoking discussion questions for Educated: A Memoir.

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Tara Westover did not set foot in a classroom until she was a freshman in college. She went on to study at Cambridge and Harvard, earning her PhD. Her incredible story is a runaway bestseller, recommended by people like Bill Gates and Michelle Obama, and our September pick for Mom's Book Nook.

Educated: A Memoir is an unforgettable memoir about growing up, forgiveness, and learning. Tara Westover was born into a survivalist family in the middle-of-nowhere in Idaho. Isolated from mainstream society, and prevented from using modern medicine and getting an education, Westover's upbringing was anything but easy. In Educated, Westover recounts how she made the journey from survivalist girl to educated woman, and how she found the strength to change her own life.

Book Club Questions for Educated

1. Discuss the difficult bind Tara is in. How does she navigate doing what her parents want and doing what she wants?

2. How did traumatic accidents shape Tara while she was growing up?

3. How do you feel about Tara's father? Did your feelings towards him change throughout the memoir?

4. What is Tara's mother's place in the family dynamic? How does her role changes through the years as she becomes the primary breadwinner?

5. Discuss this quote from Educated. In what ways do you think that Tara was educated by her upbringing, if not formally?

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6. How did Tara's siblings influence her? If Tyler hadn't gone college, do you think Tara would have ended up on a different path?

7. In the end, Tara describes education as "selfhood". How do you describe education? Has this memoir changed how you view/define education?

8. Tara wrote Educated as an adult trying to heal. How can writing a memoir be therapeutic and healing? If you wrote a memoir, what would you title it?

9. Discuss the role of history and historians in this book and in Tara's life. How is our view of history shaped by the people that we learn from, whether at home or in school?

10. Some of Tara's family members have claimed that Educated is far from the truth, while others have defended her account. How has this debate affected your view of the book?

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Check out our entire 2019 Book Club Line Up Below

Here's what we will be reading in 2019. Click each cover to learn more about these titles.