I didn't know much about this book when I started reading it but I am so glad that I did! As a therapist I found it very thought provoking. I am very aware of how our memories can be distorted and the way religion can almost hypnotise us. Tracy King grows up to challenge all her previous beliefs and some of her memories. A highly thought provoking and interesting read.

Tracy King’s life story is an interesting one; her mum was agoraphobic, alcohol was a close companion to her dad, and her sister was a serial school refuser - something she too would become following trauma. Living in poverty in the 1980s was difficult enough but the untimely death of her father shattered her family’s already fragile life. Told with candour and feeling, Learning to Think is a memorable memoir of a complex childhood and a desperate search for the truth.

Science and communications journalist Tracy King has made a living by cutting through noise towards a signal, shining a light on lazy media treatment of complex issues, and by applying critical thought to unprocessed data and showing readers how they can do the same. She is, in short, a prism through which we can better understand complex information. So, how did this detailed attitude to thought processes begin? The answer will astonish you. Around the turn of the century publishing experienced a boom in what became known as misery memoirs: tales of truly awful childhoods featuring poverty, parental neglect and various forms of abuse. King’s Learning to Think is not quite that story. Although, it surely features extreme privation and state abuse. Born into a working class community, King grew up on council estate outside Birmingham, the youngest of an extremely close and loving family. They received only the barest state support while wrestling with their poverty and profound societally inflicted mental health issues. But still they remained a strong unit. Which made the state’s interference shocking and disturbing. Things become significantly worse when horrifying violence entered their lives from an external source. Years later, a chance discovery in a bookshop gave King the tools to change her future. By self-education and critical thought she was able to treat her trauma by confronting it and exploring and unravelling the mythology she (and others) had spun around it. Learning to Think is a powerful book that is so much more than a memoir about a difficult childhood. It’s also a road map to self care and improvement. Above all, it is a clarion call for critical thought to be taught and applied in all levels of life. Note: it’s hard to get in the UK these days but Carl Sagan’s book The Demon-Haunted World (the book that changed King’s outlook) is worth tracking down if you can find it. (Proof copy supplied. Opinions my own.)

This is very interesting memoir of Tracy’s childhood in the 70s and 80s living in council housing in the Birmingham area. Her writing really brings to life the challenges for families with little money and inadequate professional support when needed. Her mother had mental health issues and wouldn’t venture out while her father was an alcoholic. Meanwhile, Emily, her elder sister by two years, develops a school phobia and becomes known as a ‘school refuser’ which is dealt with in some pretty brutal ways by the authorities. The family then get very involved in a local church and all become born again Christians but shortly after her father dies in an act of senseless violence on the council estate. Later in life author, Tracy King, delves more into her father’s death and the last third becomes somewhat of a psychological analysis into critical thinking and less of a memoir. I really was gripped by the first two thirds but found the end a little dull as I was enjoying this book as a memoir and was not so interested in appreciating the author’s newly gained intellect in the way she thought. I was also a little frustrated as at one point the memoir seemed to be heading into the family being sucked into a rather way out Christian church or even a cult but this storyline simply fizzled out. I also wanted to know more about the current life of the author, her sister and mother but I wonder is omitted as the author is clearly trying keen to protect the anonymity of some mentioned in the book, especially those involved at the time of her father’s death. One thing I did struggle with was that she started by saying that mothers are known as Mom in the area she grew up in but after the first few pages she referred to her parents mainly by their Christian names, Jackie and Mike. I found that very odd and distracting from the story as it was almost like it was a biography and not a memoir. With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Transworld for an advance e-copy of this title. This is a carefully written, sharply observed, and often heartwarming book. I agree fiercely with King’s statement in the epilogue: “I’ve had an unreasonably complicated life and I’m asking a lot of the reader to trust me that, yes, all this happened and, no, trauma like mine is not that rare. What is rare is that someone like me has an opportunity to tell her story.” It is a memoir that addresses a multitude of topics, but overwhelmingly poverty, grief, memory, and truth. Interesting, sad, infuriating, and informative, my only criticism is that it’s perhaps overly-long, with quite a bit of repetition and rumination. I am also slightly skeptical of parts, but no more than of any other memoir - especially one written by someone whose lived experience is very different from my own. Would recommend!