#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