What starts as a personal memoir, an effort to resurrect from oblivion a beloved cousin who died young, modulates in Allen's hands into a cool, reasoned, but ultimately devastating indictment of the War on Drugs and the sentencing regime it has given birth to. In plain terms, stripped of the jargon of the social sciences, she shows us what awaits you if you are young, black, and unlucky in today's United States.

The genius of Cuz lies in its willingness to accept what isn’t known about Michael … Her memoir defies genre and expectation … Cuz is a literary miracle of form and content ... Allen’s ambitious breathtaking book challenges the moral composition of the world it inhabits by telling all who listen: I loved my cousin and he loved me, and I know he’d be alive if you loved him, too

[Cuz] will stay with you for a long time ... Moving, tender, angry, insightful, this is a damning incitement of how the system fails to treat people as humans, at how gang culture affects families, and a look at how love can blind people and have terrible consequences.

Cuz will break your heart. Of the recent books that have done so much against such great odds to create a meaningful anti-incarceration movement in America, it may be the most compelling ... Danielle Allen brilliantly and searingly lays all of this out ...remarkable.

I can only stand in awe of Cuz’s account of her, Micheal’s and their family’s ordeals.

Allen makes way for letters Michael wrote from behind bars. You finally see Michael then. And, as Allen said, he is beautiful ... Michael is a virtuoso of a writer, and his brilliant letters chronicle his growth from boy to man in California’s penitentiary system.

Allen’s exceptional professional accomplishments make her latest effort, a memoir about the soul-crushing murder of her beloved younger cousin Michael, all the more stirring ... a just and moving tribute to a family member she knew incompletely, but loved unfailingly ... As a memoirist, Allen is genuinely gifted.

A compassionate retelling of an abjectly tragic story […] Among the most valuable contributions Allen makes is forcing us to ask: To what end are we locking up our children? Are we not foreclosing their options before their lives have even begun? […] Allen’s analysis of gang culture […] may be where she’s at her ferocious best

I was left stunned by it. Required reading.

In this narrative of freedom and incarceration, education and disadvantage, rehabilitation and punishment, Danielle Allen paints an unforgettable portrait of a cousin she loved. The pacing is brisk and novelistic, but the message is large and clear: we need urgently to reform the system through which we process juveniles who commit crime, because the current system perpetuates the very injustices it was designed to address.

A literary and political event like Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, Allen’s Cuz is an elegiac memoir and social jeremiad born out of the tragedy of mass incarceration. A loving cousin paying tribute to her brilliant and beloved but troubled “cuz,” Allen hits a grand slam.

Allen’s heartbreak gives way to a well-researched expedition. Why did this happen to a young black man from a loving family? Through memory, letters Michael wrote from prison and interviews with family members, Allen retraces his steps, filling in the parts of his life he kept hidden behind his grin ... Cuz is more than Michael’s story. It’s the story of ... a city where black and brown girls and boys engulfed by the crack epidemic and the rise of street gangs had no guardian angels ... In Cuz, Michael is the face of mass incarceration

Allen, whose writing is creative and accessible, uses her finely tuned talent to fold Michael’s fate into the gathering storms of the U.S. criminal-justice system and Los Angeles’ gang-related and racial turmoil. Both a searching, personal elegy and a sure-footed lamentation of the systems meant to protect us, this is a searing must-read.

Powerful … A searing memoir and sharp social critique

At its heart, Allen’s book is both an outcry and entreaty as she grapples with a painful reality

Cuz is unbearably moving

What comes through is Tara’s grit, determination and instinctive sense that somewhere within education lies her redemption ... There is pain and adversity in this heart-wrenching memoir but ultimately what Tara leaves us with is hope

Marvellous. There is no feeling like discovering a young writer who is springing up fully armed with so much talent

Absolutely superb . . . the last 100 pages were so gripping I could hardly breathe

Tara Westover's beautifully written memoir shines a light on a part of our country that we too often overlook. Her powerful tale—of trying to find a place for herself in the world, without losing her connection to her family or her beloved home—deserves to be widely read. My Mamaw would have been rooting for Tara.

Educated, in showing us the unstoppable power of a young woman determined to make her own decisions and find her own way, is an inspiring and important tale for our times. I am still cheering her on

Unflinching and fascinating

Tragic and uplifting in equal measure

An extraordinary story, beautifully told.

Extraordinary, heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting

This ferociously intelligent memoir is nevertheless full of kindness and insight. In looking beyond the triumphant point where many memoirs would finish, it achieves something far more powerful: Westover demonstrates that leaving a family is not the work of a moment but of a lifetime. Unflinching in confronting the cost of self-preservation, this book is beautiful in its bravery.

A book that I did splits over

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

A striking story, beautifully told. Tara is an incredible new talent

A punch to the gut, a slow burn, a savage indictment, a love letter: Educated somehow contrives to be all these things at once. Tara Westover guides us through the extraordinary Western landscape of her coming of age, and in clear, tender prose makes us feel what she felt. We give ourselves over to her telling, even when she takes us to the very darkest places a family can dwell. Rarely have I read a book that made me so uncomfortable, so enraged, and at the same time so utterly, entirely absorbed. I loved this book, and this woman.

This remarkable memoir – one of the best I've ever read – is my kind of miracle. The book made me cringe, cry out, cover my eyes, shake with anger, beam with pride, and appreciate the trials that led to my own education. Tara's story will find a place alongside modern classic memoirs, like Wild and The Glass Castle. It's that special

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

On audio, I find myself enthralled and convinced.

A truly inspiring listen.