I was such a mess after finishing Educated; Westover’s account of her path from rural Idaho to Cambridge doctorate is the most emotional book I had read so far this year. It is a harrowing and beautiful memoir, and many will be drawn in immediately. Westover’s memoir directly addresses the three topics I feel most passionately about: family, faith, and education. She is tried and tested to her limits in each element and is forced to make a choice no one should ever have to make (especially in the twenty-first century). As a heartbreaking result, two of the three are…
Browsing CategoryMemoir/Biography
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
This book was very very good but my exact thoughts on it are proving to be mildly elusive. It feels like one of those books I’ll occasionally think about long after I’ve finished and my thoughts and opinions will change as my circumstances do. I have hesitated reading this for almost two years now. When Breath Becomes Air really started to gain momentum in 2016 shortly after I read Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. Thinking it wise to steer clear until my love for Being Mortal had waned so as not to compare the two, I found myself in a difficult…
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
If you’re looking for a non-fiction or memoir that’s engaging, informative and witty, you’ll find it in Lab Girl. Hope Jahren, a botanist and multiple scientific award winner, chronicles her career and life in this memoir/non-fiction hybrid. The chapters alternate between engaging information about plant life (and the similarities to human life) and Jahren’s personal struggle with paranoia, her stoic upbringing, and most importantly-being a woman scientist. I loved (and appreciated) how accessible the subject matter was, Jahren writes in a such a way that science gives way to poetry and occasionally humor. I laughed out loud many times while reading…
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
A magnificent memoir, the best I’ve read in years. Since its publication in September of 2016 “Hillbilly Elegy” has been in the spotlight for its in depth look into the lives and minds of the poor white of Appalachia and the Midwest. This memoir has been referenced to exhaustion as a tool of understanding why so many from the Rust Belt and Appalachia turned out to vote Trump into office. I’ll admit, that was my primary aim for reading this book. But those looking for straight forward answers about voters backing Trump will be disappointed. This memoir never mentions…