It is always strange reviewing a memoir, because it feels a bit unfair to ‘rate’ someone’s personal experiences. Westover is being vulnerable with the reader in her memoir, and I appreciate her doing so. I read this for a book club and had the chance to discuss it with others who brought up some interesting points as well. Much of the discussion revolved around the author’s privilege of being a fairly respected but typical ‘white girl from Idaho’. She was known in her local community, and her community helped her get where she is—through employing her, letting her get her first steps out of her household, and others. I would have liked the author to reflect on this a bit more, as well as looking at how she was able to get where she is.

She is of course very grateful to her supportive brothers, who pushed her on this path. Without them, she might never have felt that she was worthy to go to school. She was also pushed by certain professors and others to apply for scholarships and programs, all while not feeling like she was deserving of them. I can understand this feeling somewhat, and it helped me empathize with her; but it is odd thinking about how so much of her success is due to the chance occurrence of having these supportive figures in her life that helped uplift her.

The author’s family is incredibly nutty. Looking at the mother’s so-called response to the author’s memoir, it is clear they still expect to gaslight Westover and make her out to be the villain; as with any perspective, it’s good to take things with a grain of salt. But I find it rather easy to side with Westover on this one. No family ought to love their children conditionally; I understand that better than most, unfortunately, and it really is an awful feeling. I’m glad that the author was able to make her own ‘found family’ and find supportive people in her extended family. I hope that she is able to move on past the trauma of her family and her life; writing this memoir probably helped a ton. Cutting off family isn’t easy, but it is what the author deserves—she deserves to be free to make her own choices and live her own life.

Westover is clearly a skilled writer (a PhD from Cambridge is no laughing matter, after all), and I appreciated the eloquent descriptions of her youth, growing up on the mountain, as well as her experiences to broadening her experience in the world by traveling to Rome and Paris. Sometimes the episodes were tough to read, and other times they felt a little amorphous and random, but overall this memoir was a delight to read. My main takeaway from this book is motivation—I have been in an academic slump despite starting a new program. The feeling of not being worthy and self-doubt are constant themes in the memoir that Westover has to overcome, and through reading it, I felt myself begin to examine these impulses in my own thoughts. I hope I can use her experience and become more confident in my academic self-worth, too.