One of the year’s most arresting, humbling and acute memoirs. It is a catch-in-the-throat, life-affirming work that you want to gulp down in one and recommend to all your friends. Fitzmaurice tells her story in sparkling prose that is as sinewy as her new sea-strengthened body, and as admirable and boundless as her spirit

I Found My Tribe is written with such lightness of touch that it’s life-affirming, powerfully so. Yes, sometimes I was breathless from stabs of pain, but this book reads almost like poetry. In beguiling, luminous words Ruth tells her story in a seemingly scattergun way… as the overall picture builds up like a mosaic made from shiny beautiful things… I Found My Tribe is inspiring, humbling and a picture of what love really looks like. An astonishingly beautiful book by an astonishingly beautiful person

Uplifting and life-affirming, this is a manifesto to live as hard and as well as you can

A powerful, emotional, poetic, funny, philosophical and courageous work of art ... a joyful, raw, urgent invitation to her readers to 'just dive' -- into the sea, and into life. Dive in, she urges, no matter what horrors life flings your way

Ruth Fitzmaurice's beautiful book is an enraptured cry at life's gifts and griefs ... Life-affirming and full of love, this book is a clarion call to live life to the full: to dive in for a swim and be brave

Fitzmaurice's brilliantly lyrical ear and gentle humour makes this a none-too-distant relative to the likes of Joan Didion and Cheryl Strayed

A vivid and beautifully written work, that chronicles a life of joy and frustration and coping and celebration and swimming against the tide and all those points in between

This debut is set to become a global bestseller -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly meets Calendar Girls, with a splash of Roger Deakin. It is one of a number of recent books by women riding the crest of a wild-swimming wave. Fitzmaurice's memoir, though, is likely to be the one that exerts the greatest tidal pull

Deceptively simple prose, laced with clever imagery, emotional complexity and heart

A moving memoir of family life, coping with her husband's motor neurone disease and the icy joys of wild sea swimming

She has managed to distil emotional hardship against a mundanely challenging domestic backdrop into something full-bodied and, at times, gorgeously spirited without ever seeming to force either the sincerity of her voice or her clippy, musical style

Fitzmaurice’s book is as poetic as it is devastating, exploring thoughts of suicide and murder at the same time as being life-affirming and even occasionally funny. It is a love letter to her husband, an homage to the sea and a tribute to the power of friendship of one woman’s fortitude in the face of a cruel fate

An inspiring and beautifully written account of family life through a serious illness

Lyrical and moving

Ruth Fitzmaurice’s crazy, joyful, heartbreaking, romantic, raw and honest memoir is a work of art made from the heart. It swells with great love, high drama as well as hijinks, deep sadness and raw emotion… Sprinkling magic and stardust in prose that is far from sentimental, not afraid to confront the real and the raw

A beautiful and often times devastating tribute to her family, her friends and the healing power of nature

Moving… If you love a triumph-over-adversity real life tale, Ruth is your gal

An exceptional and beautifully written book about how love - changed but yet unchanged - friendship, frustration, deep despair and delight, can all be experienced in the same day...If you buy one book this summer, make it this one

Absolutely brilliant… I highly recommend it – inspirational

Uplifting and inspiring

As poetic as it is devastating

Like the sea, the writing in this terrific debut is both bracing and beautiful

Like the Irish sea that laps the coast at Greystones, Co Wicklow, this extraordinary, beautifully written book ebbs and flows with love amid the crises of daily life… It’s a powerful, memorable and life-affirming read

A heartbreaking work of shimmering beauty that charts her own place in the world… As astounding as it is inspirational

This is far from a desperate tale and a plea for pity. It is an often uplifting and funny account of learning to dealing with hardship and how resilient and adaptable we can be in testing times

A true-to-the-bone and life affirming account of her life with a husband with MND, 5 young kids and her addiction to swimming in the Irish sea every day

Her beautiful, sparse prose gets to the very essence of what is happening with the various tribes. It is a moving book too, with several poignant moments. She is one tough lady

If ever there was a lesson in living the fullest, most passionate life you can, this is it! I Found My Tribe is one of the most moving memoirs I have ever read. Living with her husband Simon, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease and her five children, Ruth Fitzmaurice writes so honestly and vividly about her family's life that you will think about the Fitzmaurice's long after you have turned the final page. It is beautifully written with clever descriptions and vivid imagery that will take your breath away. Writing to the background noise of Simon's medical machines, twenty four hour carers and five children, Ruth candidly writes about her life as she navigates various different themes including grief, friendship and love and the strength she has in the face of adversity… I found my tribe is an uplifting powerful memoir that will make you laugh and cry in equal measures. I urge everyone to read it

Beautiful…There is huge passion in Fitzmaurice’s writing.

A surprisingly uplifting read

Breathtaking, heart-wrenching, inspirational – I’ve never read anything like this. Educated tells the story of a young girl's escape from violence and emotional prison. It is about the love of family and the pain of family both, the ferocity of the human spirit, and the power of education to change lives. Educated is one of the best books, and Westover one of the most gifted writers, that I've read in a very long time

Powerful, moving, brave, naked and completely at home in its form . . . This is a daughter’s story of how she grew into herself and comes to understand her home.

An incredible memoir of triumph over seemingly endless adversity. The author's ability to write about her experiences in a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental way makes her story a pleasure to read. A study in the power and wonder of resilience

Educated is a wise and deep reflection about surviving one’s family. I bow down to Tara Westover, not only for her marvelous, sentence-by-sentence craftsmanship but also for making sense and meaning from a confounding and hair-raising childhood. This is memoir at its best

Educated is so powerful, so haunting . . . [Westover’s] finely measured, beautifully rhythmic prose conveys the pain of trying to reconcile herself with being estranged from her parents, no matter how delusional they might be. Rejecting any form of binary thinking, she writes with a humaneness that comes partly from having suffered, and the book that grew out of that suffering is a rare and unexpected gift

Tara Westover’s exhilarating coming of age story has only just come out and it’s already a classic … it leaves us readers dazzled and humbled in equal measure

An extraordinary tale

Totally unputdownable

Remarkable

A wonderful read

A beautifully written, lyrical memoir packed full of incident and well worth a read

A beautifully written account…fit to stand alongside the great modern memoirs.

It’s amazing. Couldn’t recommend it enough

A brilliant memoir

Amazing and brilliant.

Vivid evocation of a truly terrifying childhood

Unflinching and fascinating. Educated was one of 2018's standout memoirs.

It's extraordinary and shines a light on the Mormon way of life ... fascinating.

A powerful, jaw dropper of a book

Triumphing over your background like spring triumphs over winter is always fertile territory for memoir. Perhaps the most exciting recently is Tara Westover’s Educated; she had a home life that is frankly astonishing, and how she ends up doing a master’s at Cambridge will make your heart soar.’

Jaw-dropping and so inspiring, everyone should read this book

Tara's journey as she realises her burning desire to know more about the world and escape the influence of her domineering father and brother is a true inspiration.

Absolutely incredible.

An amazing story

If you didn't read this memoir when it first came out, do so, and realise what the fuss was all about

It was one of the most interesting books I've ever read[...] I came away a lot more enlightened and educated myself.

This is a fascinating, breathtaking memoir that you won't be able to put down.

A really remarkable story

Breathtaking

Educated is devastatingly entertaining. Morbidly fascinating. Educated is, without doubt, an essential read.

I found myself forcing onto other people just so I could talk to them about it.

It's brilliant.

In her beautifully written memoir, Westover explores her complex childhood and her heart-breaking decision to leave her family and pursue an education. It is proof of the transformative power of learning and the importance of second chances

I devoured this book. I loved it . . . It's such a good book

It's amazing

Educated is a shocking story of self-invention and the transformative power of hope, tenacity and education.

On audio, I find myself enthralled and convinced.

A truly inspiring listen.