Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

Educated by Tara Westover

2 reviews

sasshq's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

neni's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

 This was amazing. The way the author writes is incredibly gripping and compelling. Her life and her experiences are so far from anything I’ve experience or even thought it was possible to experience nowadays, that I kept needing to remind myself the story was true and not some indredibly elaborate fiction. And yet I was still able to empathise and engage with the story on an emotional level, because the writing was so good.
 
It was painful and yet fascinating to read about her interactions with her family, with all the gaslighting and the toxicity, and yet experience some beautiful, wholesome moments with her too. I think the author did a fantastic job of telling the story in a way that felt just and appropriate to the gravity anfd complexity of the situation, didn’t diminish the validity of her experiences and feelings, and yet wasn’t an angry manifesto about how singularly evil her family was. There was pain and violence, but also compassion in there, and that made it an even more valuable read because people, and life, are just like that. Messy and incoherent and unresolved in a way that is not necessarily “satisfying” like fiction is. 

I was also just overall immensely impressed with her life’s journey. Having no access to an education and then ending up with degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, being super talented at writing, is just like WOW. Not to mention the ammount of growth, work and self-reflection that processing and getting through all that trauma must have necessitated. Truly astonishing. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...