I'm certainly not the first person to make the observation that this was SO similar to The Glass Castle (which I read last June). And my thoughts are also very similar! I was blown away by Tara's story of overcoming her abusive, neglectful upbringing to achieve educational success that is hard to attain no matter how well we are raised. Like Wall's memoir, I wish that it was heavier on the time she spent AFTER leaving her family behind. Although, the details of her upbringing were appallingly fascinating. The amount of viscerally uncomfortable scenes of accidents and injuries that happened to her family, who reject modern medicine, were many. I felt as if she meandered a bit, recalling all these childhood 'stranger than fiction' accounts. But her observations by the end of the book were searing: about gaslighting, what we know to be true, what is history and who writes it? There's a line there at the end, when she acknowledges that SHE writes history that made me tear up. It's a powerful read. Also, in general, it's another work that gives some pretty solid evidence that misogyny is the root of all evil.
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