Tara Westover is an American memoirist known for her popular memoir called Educated. Tara Westover received great recognition for her memoir when it debuted as #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List and won national awards such as the LA Times Book Prize. Educated was one of the top books ranked in 2018 and Tara Westover was named as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019 in Time magazine. Tara grew up in a “survivalist” family and spent most of her childhood being homeschooled, never receiving a formal or accurate education. Westover’s book depicts her life as she goes on the journey to self educate herself and shift away from her family ideals and untraditional upbringing. Tara Westover is an influential person as her journey demonstrates self-resiliency, the power of education and what self-motivation can do to bring change in an individual’s life. Tara Westover was born in Clifton, Idaho and is the youngest of seven children. Westover belonged to a “survivalist” family who did not believe in doctors, hospitals, public schooling, pharmaceutical medicines or the government. As a result of Westover’s family beliefs, she was delivered by a midwife and never had a birth certificate until the age of nine. The children in the family were homeschooled and often had to learn how to read from the older siblings in the family. Although the siblings were homeschooled, they were never given the formal opportunity to sit and learn as they spent most of their day working with their father in the junkyard. The siblings would never wear protective equipment like a hard hat while working, which resulted in the children sustaining frequent injuries Despite these serious injuries, Westover’s parents would not take the children to the hospital for treatment, instead relying on their mother’s herbal treatments and other forms of alternative healing. As a result of her upbringing, Tara Westover was isolated from society and never had the experience of sitting in a classroom or writing papers as most kids have the privilege of doing. However, Tara took it upon herself, with the help of one of her older brothers, to teach herself how to read and write in order to pursue further studies and escape her daily family routine. Westover demonstrates self-resiliency in her journey of self-educating because she was able to overcome her past experiences and pursue education without the support of her parents. When Tara became 17 years old, she decided to pursue an education with the guidance of her older brother, Trevor, who had made the decision to attend college. Tara taught herself a wide variety of subjects and purchased textbooks to help her pass the ACT exam in order to gain admission to Brigham Young University. In order to afford her education, Tara got a paying job outside of her family junkyard and would spend her mornings helping her father work and evenings working at her outside job .When attending her first few lectures at Brigham Young University, Tara struggled to assimilate into the culture of the classrooms and lecture style teaching. She also struggled with learning. However, Tara overcame her hardships and gained scholarships to help her earn her Master’s degree from University of Cambridge at Trinity College. Tara’s journey demonstrates the power that education and learning can have on an individual. Tara was able to leave her traditional family lifestyle and views and was exposed to another world through education, which helped to make her a successful writer today. Despite facing hardships, Tara did not give up on her dream and goal of being educated and remained motivated throughout her journey. Tara Westover is an influential person because she demonstrates that anything is possible, as long as one is willing to do anything to achieve it. Not only is Tara influential to adults today, she is also influential to young girls in school because she demonstrates the power of education and how it can help one overcome and change their current situation in life.