Educated by Tara Westover

not sentimental: Big Red, Black Mare, White Giant. I was thrown from dozens of these horses as they buc ...

mount, and I climbed onto the barn roof, sure the corral would descend into violence. But ...

preserve his baby teeth for as long as possible, then when they rotted out, he’d be given post ...

Shawn couldn’t help me, not on that unbroken mare. Hysteria in one horse causes hysteria in others, ...

hold of the saddle horn. Bud had worked himself into a frenzy. He leapt wildly, arching his back as he shot ...

My brother Tony had taken out a loan to buy his own rig—a semi and trailer—but in order to make the pa ...

man with minimal effort. You can control someone’s whole body with two fingers. It’s about knowing where the ...

banter of truckers stretched out across the interstate. “Look out for a green four-wheeler,” a gruff voice ...

seventeen. She nodded at what Charles was saying, but her eyes were fixed on Shawn. At the first rehearsal she ...

“I want a Milky Way.” Sadie left again and fetched the Milky Way. She handed it to him with a nervou ...

perfect punishment,” he said. “I simply won’t see her. All I have to do is not see her, and she will s ...

my hair were wet; my scalp was raw. I thought it was over. I’d begun to back away when he seized ...

had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me, that was its effect. ...

In September the twin towers fell. I’d never heard of them until they were gone. Then I watched a ...

would stop, but it seemed my body was no longer mine. It belonged to itself now, and cared not ...

SHAWN AND I AUDITIONED for a melodrama at Worm Creek. I saw Charles at the first rehearsal and spent half ...

I thought things would get better when Shawn dumped Sadie—I suppose I’d convinced myself that it was ...

floor. When I opened my eyes, Mother and Shawn were facing each other, Mother wearing only a tattered ...

“Say it,” he said. But I was somewhere else. I was in the future. In a few hours, Shawn would be kneeling ...

“She’s not going anywhere,” Shawn repeated, flashing the key ring. Tyler tossed me his own keys. “Just go,” ...