"Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure...

I suppose it's always been about water. Water in my dreams where there was water in my lungs. I lived in water behind my mother's ribs for a time. But this book isn't about my mother. And it's not really about water either. My father was a powerful emotional blacksmith who hammered me and bent me across every anvil of my youth. He shaped my masculinity and my femininity. He melded my hopes and my fears so that I would always be... unsure. This book...