This book was thoroughly thought-provoking. My Lukwarm rating isn’t because I think the writing or the material was “meh”. The problem is, it lacks a conclusion.
The good bits. The first 16-17 years of the book are an excellent read. It gives some real perspective in to the importance of a deep and broad education in terms of empowering the little guy. It also highlights the importance of the community. Every time Tara would recount one of her nightmarish scenes I was screaming in my head WHERE IS HER BISHOP!?/Hometeacher/ young woman’s leaders/ neighbor.
It was good to hear how she got out of a bad situation and how she stood up for herself and then made such strides in educating herself. It was fantastic to hear about all the help she received from various people including her bishop, once she got out of her home.
What it’s not. I’ve listened to a few interviews and read a few reviews and many of the interviewers and critics who haven’t read the book make the mistake of looking at it as a kind of expose on Rural Idaho and Utah. A Rocky Mountain Hill Billy Elegy, if you will. It’s not that. Tara specifically states that in the book and in multiple interviews. As a native of rural Utah with many rural Idahoan family and friends, I can assure you, Tara’s situation was uniquely weird.
My Conclusion. This book isn’t over. She ends it estranged from her childhood and faith and she is clearly conflicted, and just as clearly still living and changing how she thinks. I like her as an intellectual force and I hope she figures it out. In many ways, this feels like C.S. Lewis’s Memoir towards the end but before the all-important conclusion. The best indicator as to the eventual conclusion she left, is that her siblings she mentioned in the book, as highly educated as she became, reconciled the horrible things of their youth with the good things that also came from it. If she can come back in a few decades for a satisfactory ending, I think I would be much more likely to recommend this extraordinarily well written and thought-provoking book.