I expect an inspiring story about lifting yourself from ignorance and the poverty that brings, through education in all its form. But I did not expect the richness in which Tara Westover wrote it. She’s great at noticing things felt, rather than seen — and wraps them in flowing poetic sentences.

She’s vulnerable, damaged, yet overcame it. She diminishes her glory but does not hide her horror: the book touches on violence, religion, patriarchy, parenting, family and filial piety, conspiracy theories, self-confidence, and so much more. And ultimately I hold it towards the light against my own life; my own parents, my own education and the fruits of it, as well as the regrets that many years I should have wasted less of it. And it also encourages me to learn on. For this alone it’s such a powerful book.