Tara Westover grew up in a wacko survivalist Mormon home in Idaho. Her dad believed the end times were coming and they buried fuel, guns, ammo, and canned goods all over their mountain junkyard home. He wouldn’t let them go to school, to a doctor or hospital. Tara didn’t even know when she was born; she had no birth certificate. He also almost caused the deaths of several of his children by his dangerous practices while making them work in his scrap yard/junk yard.
One of her older brothers, Luke, had his jeans soaked with gasoline when draining the gas tank. He forgot about that after lunch and his leg burst into flames when he had to use a torch. Her memory is of Luke crawling to the house on his own and his mom having to heal him. Another older brother, Shawn, was standing on the tines of the forklift that his dad was operating and somehow fell on his head onto a concrete wall. Again, no help and not taken to the hospital. Shawn later became violent and evil to Tara and others. He used to hold her arm and bend back her wrist and stick her head in the toilet and call her a whore. They also had two car accidents driving home at night after visiting her grandma in Arizona. Terrible accidents that caused severe injuries to her Mom and her brother, Tyler. Again, no hospital care and her mom had migraines and stayed in the basement for months. Tara had to work in the junkyard and her dad would fling sharp pieces of metal right at her. She had to scream to get him to notice her. Somehow, someway, mostly because of her older brother, Tyler, and his example on how to study and playing music for her on his boom box (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) she was able to study her way through the ACT, attend and graduate from BYU, and then get her PhD at Cambridge and Harvard. Amazing woman, but it shows how blood is thicker than water, because she actually believed she was insane and really did have a mental breakdown for about a year. Her mom refused to believe her about her brother, Shawn. But only after saying she did believe her. NUTS, NUTS, NUTS. Her mom is a mid-wife and herbalist and her company of natural oils is/was worth millions. Her dad injured himself severely (forgot to drain gasoline and torched a car which exploded and burned half his face off and his hands). She healed him with her herbs and oils when he should have died. What a psychotic family this girl grew up in. Almost makes me ill thinking about it.