#1 New York Times; Wall Street Journal; AND BOSTON GLOBE bestseller • NAMED ONE of the TEN BEST BOOKS of the YEAR BY the New York Times BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMAS FAVORITE BOOKS of the YEAR • BILL GATESS HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST FOR the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLES AWARD IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY • FINALIST FOR the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLES JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • FINALIST FOR the PENJEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED ONE of the BEST BOOKS of the YEAR BY the Washington Post • O: the Oprah Magazine • Time • NPR • Good Morning America • San Francisco Chronicle • the Guardian • the Economist • Financial Times • Newsday • New York Post • theSkimm • Refinery29 • Bloomberg • Self • Real Simple • Town & Country • Bustle • Paste • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • LibraryReads • BookRiot • Pamela Paul; KQED • New York Public LibraryAn unforgettable memoir about a young girl who; kept out of school; leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge UniversityBorn to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho; Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her 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 Taras older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college; Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her; taking her over oceans and across continents; to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if shed traveled too far; if there was still a way home. Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Tara Westovers] childhood; the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?-VogueWestover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing; but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all; and resonant for many others. -the New York Times Book Review