[4] Westover was the youngest of seven children born in Clifton, Idaho (population 259) to Mormon survivalist parents.

Westover has said an older brother taught her to read, and she studied the scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She gained admission to Brigham Young University and was awarded a scholarship, although she had no high school diploma.

After a difficult first year, in which Westover struggled to adjust to academia and the wider society there, she became more successful and graduated with honors in 2008.

[9][10] In 2009, while a graduate student at Cambridge, Westover told her parents that for many years (since age 15), she had been physically and psychologically abused by an older brother.

Westover was Fall 2019 A.M. Rosenthal Writer in Residence at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School.

As of February 2020[update], Educated has spent two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list[25] and is being translated into 45 languages.

[28] Through their attorney, the family has disputed some elements of Westover's book, including her suggestion that her father may have bipolar disorder and that her mother may have suffered a brain injury that resulted in reduced motor skills.