I originally treated like another non-fiction piece but I realized that Tara’s memoir is narratively-driven (both in terms of characters and events) so I’ll view it through that lens. Furthermore, this won’t be a summary, but a thought dump. I’ve seen glances of the cover a couple of times but I saw it once on display in a public library and decided to take a small read through. To be honest, it didn’t leave a strong impression but I put it on my Goodreads and picked up it up a two months back. I found Buck’s Peak, Idaho to be vividly described, the mountain always in view of the home, the junkyard beside the house, the crimson furniture (I think couch), the stokes supermarket a drive away. The memoir also describes the characters of the memoir well, learning about the survivalist views of Tara’s father and later on, the belief in alternative medicine from her mother. Tara writes her memoir with a slow pacing and a large amount of exposition at the beginning to set up what her life and family, making the transition to her move to Cambridge all the more jarring. With that being said, the memoir spent too much time in this initial setting and Tara’s final leave to BYU/Oxford took too long. I’m aware that this is a memoir so Tara doesn’t have the luxury of being able to shift around events but it still negatively affected the pacing and I started to lose interest about midway through the book, until she left to university. I do feel better about the character interactions. Her conflicts with Shawn were particularly tense; every time he appeared, it felt like there was a ticking time bomb. The battle between the siblings settles in an unamicable way, with most of the family choosing to take Shawn’s side over Tara’s when she finally reveals how he’s treated her.