BOOKISH RECAP: FIRST QUARTER OF 2018

Bookish Recap is my version of Stacking the Shelves post in which I talk about all the books that I read and posts that I shared on the blog in last three months. Linking up with Stacking the Shelves post by Tynga’s Reviews.

BLURB LOVE #12

Book blurb is the most important aspect when it comes to deciding what I want to read. It is usually what makes me add (or not add) book to my TBR. Imagine there is no cover, no title and you have no idea who wrote it. Would you read such a book based just on its blurb?

Test yourself.

REVIEW: EDUCATED BY TARA WESTOVER

Educated by Tara Westover
Published by: Random House
Genre: Autobiography / Memoir
Release date: February 20th 2018
Source: Netgalley ARC

      
       

An unforgettable memoir in the tradition of The Glass Castleabout a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University

Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

BATTLE OF SURVIVAL STORIES: SCI-FI VS. HISTORICAL

Do you like survival stories? I do. Today I have two for you. 

One set in the past, the other one in the future. Which one won me over?