by Tara Westover, Kindle version, 2018, Random House LLC

This book is a harrowing memoir about a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional family in Idaho with an abusive father and brother. She was discouraged from attending school and told she had to remain at home. Despite her family situation she broke away and went on to get degrees from Cambridge and Harvard.

The book is well written and compelling. She does mention areas where her version may be clouded due to memory lapses which may cast some doubt on actual events as she describes them, but the book overall is believable.

The one question that goes unanswered is how someone with such limited resources and support can go on to achieve so much academic success when our schools, in many cases, can’t always succeed with much more resources.