A tough story to read. Tara's success through so much adversity is remarkable. There are so many times where she could, or should, have died even just from physical injuries, let alone mental injuries. Her level of academic success, and the amazing quality of her writing and speaking (I watched an interview) is really astonishing given her background and what it took for her to get there.
I'm not sure it's inspiring, more horrifying, knowing that there are many more like her that don't make it out of poverty and abuse to a comfortable life, let alone international success.
Another thing that suck with me is just how destructive conspiracy theories can be when combined with mental illness. Her Dad's paranoia and radicalization were stoked by the events with the Weavers on Ruby Ridge, and very nearly destroyed the entire family.
4 stars.
This one really stuck with me too. Although I had to skip over the very vivid descriptions of some of the scrapyard scenes. It was also fascinating to read that even a deeply religious college was a liberal escape. Also that she had such distrust of her own memories at times.
ReplyDeleteYeah, reading some of the reviews on Amazon there's been a lot of attacks on her authenticity, both from Internet randos and people in the story who are probably very unhappy about how they are portrayed. That explains why there are very defensive footnotes about conflicting views from family members that probably came from the publisher's fact checking.
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