Life is hard. It’s hard for everyone. We want to be happy, successful and loved, but we sometimes struggle to fulfill those desires. So, although everyone’s hard looks and feels different, the struggle itself is universal and, perhaps, the thing that connects us most.
We spend endless hours looking for how-tos — how to make X amount of dollars, find the love of your life, overcome adversity. Unfortunately, there is no script. The answers aren’t on TikTok, Google or in advice columns. They aren’t in a job, a new hair color or a boyfriend. Instead, we find answers one life experience at a time.
Hopefully, we learn and apply those lessons to the adversity that awaits. But every so often, a courageous person (who happens to be a great writer) shares their story, and we grow through their experience. Rather than struggle, we settle in with a memoir, and the inspiration, love and courage therein change our lives.
I asked Girlfriends about memoirs that changed their lives. Read on for the titles that were repeatedly mentioned.
A #1 New York Times, Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Educated is brutal, tragic and, at times, painful to read. But it is chock-full of morals, inspiration and the hard truth that sometimes we need to break free from the people we love to chase the life we desire. Westover and her six siblings were raised by strict, survivalist Mormon parents in rural Idaho, where medical ailments were treated at home by herbs or “God’s pharmacy.” In preparation for the “end of days,” Westover and her siblings stockpile peaches and other emergency supplies and sleep within reach of their “head for the hills bag.” Her father believed that education was the government’s way of brainwashing students, so the children were never sent to school.