This is a gut-wrenching but an endearing memoir. 

It’s a story of a girl growing up in a paranoiac family that doesn’t believe in public schools, Holocaust, government agencies and with many other quirks. It’s also a story of living through a physically abusive and mentally tormented upbringing.

If I sound gloom, hold your horses. It is an endearing story of someone who went from no schooling to getting a Ph.D in just a span of ten years through sheer grit and perseverance. 

Simple acts of going to a school or visiting a hospital or wearing a fashionable dress are indeed a privilege and luxury for certain people. Also it’s a reminder that, many simple but common things like reading a text book to know more about a topic, washing your hands with soap or having a pain killer tablet, are a privilege and a product of your environment.

This is soulful reminder of counting one’s blessings and privileges that we all take for granted. One of the wonderful books I listened through this year. 

I started this book as it was highly recommended by Bill Gates. Now that I read his review, I too was also eerily reminded of the Netflix’s documentary Wild Wild Country for the cult like beliefs upheld by many characters in this.