What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorEducated
Tara Westover
The daughter of survivalists, who is kept out of school, educates herself enough to leave home for university.
Escape
Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer · 426 pages
The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral par
Once We Were Sisters
Sheila Kohler · 256 pages
At thirty-seven, Sheila Kohler received the news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned, she flew home determined to find answers. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Kohler evokes a bond between sisters that changes but never breaks.
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah · 297 pages
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often ab
A Man Named Dave
Dave Pelzer · 339 pages
From the Publisher: "All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself." These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality. But even after he was rescued, his lif
Crazy Brave
Joy Harjo · 176 pages
A memoir from the Native American poet describes her youth with an abusive stepfather, becoming a single teen mom, and how she struggled to finally find inner peace and her creative voice.
Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong
Susan Blumberg-Kason · 340 pages
"When Susan, a shy Midwesterner in love with Chinese culture, started graduate school in Hong Kong, she quickly fell for Cai, the Chinese man of her dreams. As they exchanged vows, Susan thought she'd stumbled into an exotic fairy tale, until she realized Cai-- and his culture-- were not what she thought."--Page 4 of cover.
A Mother's Story
Rosie Batty, Bryce Corbett · 336 pages
Not Without My Daughter
Betty Mahmoody · 423 pages
Imagine yourself alone and vulnerable, trapped by a husband you thought you trusted, and held prisoner in his native Iran; a land where women have no rights and Americans are despised. For one American woman, Betty Mahmoody, this nightmare became reality, and escape became only an impossible dream. Not Without My Daughter is the true story of one woman's desperate struggle to survive and to escape
Ordeal: An Autobiography
Linda Lovelace, Mike McGrady · 253 pages
Former porno movie star tells the true story of the brutality and horror behind her rise in the business from turning tricks in Florida to starring in "Deep Throat," all under the pressure of her sadistic boyfriend.
The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes (5 Year Anniversary)
Dawn Schiller · 478 pages
Schiller reveals the perilous road John Holmes led her down-- from drugs and addiction to beatings, arrests, forced prostitution, and being sold to the drug underworld. Surviving the horrific Wonderland murders, she entered protective custody, ran from the FBI, endured a heart-wrenching escape from John, and ultimately turned him in to the police.
My Feudal Lord
Tehmina Durrani, William Hoffer, Marilyn Hoffer · 365 pages
An auto-biography of the writer beautifully and boldly written. From her childhood to her position of power as one of the several wives of a prominent and celebrated politician, she tells her story and that of her second husband Mustafa Khar as is with unabashed guts.
Infidel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali · 353 pages
"Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress
Once in a House on Fire
Andrea Ashworth · 332 pages
Andrea Ashworth, at age twenty-eight one of the youngest fellows at Oxford University, is a young woman of remarkable charm, poise, and intelligence. Her path to her present life, however, has been far from conventional, and in this striking memoir, written with courage and delicacy, she shares a story that makes her achievements all the more astonishing. Although she only vaguely remembers her M
This Is Me: A Reckoning
Hayden Panettiere · 320 pages
Hayden Panettiere’s career in entertainment began before she was old enough to walk. From early commercials to film and television roles in hits like *Remember the Titans*, her career unfolded in the public eye, resulting in tremendous success by her early teens. She had become a fixture of early-2000s pop culture, earning acclaim for performances in *Heroes, Nashville* (which earned her two Golde
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
J.D. Vance · 272 pages
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over fo
Color Me Butterfly: A True Story of Courage, Hope and Transformation
L.Y. Marlow · 422 pages
The Liars' Club
Mary Karr · 320 pages
The Texas refinery town of Leechfield, perched on the swampy rim of the Gulf, is famous for mosquitoes and the manufacture of Agent Orange - a place where the only bookstores are religious ones and the restaurants serve only fried food. A handful of the Leechfield oil workers gather regularly at the American Legion Bar to drink salted beer and spin long, improbable tales. They're the Liars' Club.
Behind Closed Doors: A True Story of Abuse, Neglect and Survival Against the Odds
Jenny Tomlin · 264 pages
Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter
Shoko Tendo · 216 pages
Not My Father's Son
Alan Cumming · 304 pages
**Acclaimed actor Alan Cumming shares the raw and emotional story of his turbulent relationship with his father and the long-buried family secrets that shaped his life and career.** A beloved star of stage, television, and film, Alan Cumming is celebrated for his unparalleled diversity and fearlessness as an artist. However, his success conceals a painful childhood marked by the heavy hand of a
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls · 296 pages
A story about the early life of Jeannette Walls. The memoir is an exposing work about her early life and growing up on the run and often homeless. It presents a different perspective of life from all over the United States and the struggle a girl had to find normalcy as she grew into an adult.
Shot in the Heart
Mikal Gilmore · 403 pages
Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioner's Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a blacksheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, a