This is a remarkable and intense memoir written by Tracy King. I’m finding it very difficult to summarise as the book touches on so much. It is essentially about King’s life growing up on a council estate not far from Birmingham with her Mum, Dad and older sister. Each of them has their issues but it is a loving and creative atmosphere. However, when King is 12, her Dad is killed and part of the book is about her trying to find out the truth as a youngster, then trying to shield herself so that she can break free of her trauma but then ultimately learning how to look back and assess her experiences. The art/skill of learning and questioning is a strong theme in the book as is alcoholism, agoraphobia and born-again Christianity. However, it is the memoir of someone who grew up in circumstances that many do not manage to break free of and who are crushed by a broken system. As the author says, there are likely to be many other similar stories out there but people from her background don’t get the chance to tell them. I hope this will encourage publishers and others to give opportunities for a multitude of stories from a variety of backgrounds to be told. Overall, this book is incredibly well written. While it contains lots of difficult subjects, it wasn’t difficult to read and I would recommend it to others who enjoy reading non-fiction. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This is an intensely personal memoir about Tracy's life mostly relating to when she was younger, mostly in her teens. It is remarkable for its openness and, under the circumstances its balance. There is a "born again" Christian part of this and aspects of her childhood and early on her teen years to a degree were quite happy. However under the surface things were not always that good. The book opens with her being exorcised of her demons by to men from her church. Her father had difficulties with work in part due to his alcoholism. Her mother had mental health issues and Tracy was often acting a support for her. Her older sister had issues with school attendance and was placed into care. Add in the fact that her father was murdered and I find it remarkable that Tracy can writes such an account of her life. The more I look back on reading this the less I like the idea of passing judging on this in terms of ratings. On platforms that allow no rating that is what I will do. In no way is this intended as a judgement on this book, simply the fact that I fail to see what right I have to "review" in that way the life that Tracy had. The contrasts in Tracy life are wide and varied. The fact that she managed to get through to where she is now speaks volumes for her as a person. However it also says a lot to me about the positives from her early life often provided by her parents. I really liked the fact that there is some humour here too. While Tracy found that conventional education didn't work for her (any more than it had for her sister) she didn't let little things like that stop her - I loved her description of the German exam she took having only done one class on the subject in the whole year. For me it said quite a lot about her and in a positive way. I found this very readable however the book changed for me around 75% through to something that went up a level. Having maybe got on top of the real issues in her life Tracy decides she wants to look further at her father's murder. I was frankly amazed at the way she dealt with this aspect - again it says a great deal about her as a person. Worth bearing in mind that Tracy says "…trauma like mine is not rare. What is rare is that someone like me has an opportunity to tell her story". Sadly I think that is very true and for that alone this book is important. I'd like to return to the title of this book - Learning to Think. To me it's a very good title and maybe is key to Tracy's life and ability to recover in the broadest sense from the events in her early life. It fascinated me (and I was slightly envious) that her father used to give them "logic" problems to solve. I guess as an engineer of sorts this was something quite basic to him. I do feel that set a wonderful foundation for her ability to think. After that came people she met and engaged with (rarely school based). After that she started reading quite deep and profound books. I can't judge what worked for Tracy but these feel like significant factors on her life journey to me. This really is a unusual and remarkable read. There are plenty of parts of this book that I made notes on and might comment on however it is far better to discover her story for yourself. It won't be for everyone however I'm guessing that quite a few people will finds aspects of this resonate with them. It made me smile, it made me angry, it made me sad and sincerely I thanks Tracy for sharing her story. Note - I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review

This is a book with an unusual opening chapter in that the author Tracy King, aged 12, is being exorcised of demons by two male members of her church. It seems to work and then she introduces the reader is introduced to her family; the Kings. Mike and Jackie, her parents and her older sister Emily. They were a working class family based in the Midlands around Birmingham. Tracy remembers her childhood as being happy despite her parents experiencing money worries and debt. The house that they had worked so hard to buy was repossessed and they ended up living on a council estate. Jackie became agoraphobic although she did manage to break free of it in later life. Mike worked abroad in Saudi Arabia and became an alcoholic. But he did try and control it and attend Alcoholics Anonymous. They encouraged both of their daughters although they became school refusers after being bullied. There were books in the household, games and in 1979 they also had computers. Mike was an engineer and loved to set them logic puzzles. He was trying to set up his own business despite money being tight. Tracy paints a vivid picture of hiding from the ‘tally man’ when credit payments are due. And then Jackie is approached on the street by a local born again Christian and the family become converted into a religious way of life, even Mike. They all undergo baptism and the church becomes central to their lives. And then came the cataclysmic event that changed everything – the death of Mike at 44 and its aftermath. This was a fascinating story to read as the author writes so well about working class life and how poverty or even ‘just getting by’ can limit life chances by making ambitions almost inaccessible. Other people make decisions for you as when Social Services take Emily at almost twelve against her will into a psychiatric hospital for refusing school. She then goes into a boarding school and lives a different life from the rest of the family. The charity football match in aid of a fund for Mike that the family knows nothing about and no hope of rehousing after Mike’s death. They just have to go on living on the estate. It’s the lack of control in working class lives that can be difficult. At 16, Tracy decides to have no more ‘school or the church’ and embarks on further education. She and her sister were obviously determined to rise above their limitations and the title of the book refers to her learning to think for herself. In a second hand bookshop she finds a copy of Carl Sagan, ‘The Demon Haunted world’ and she uses it to make sense of the world and what has happened. She had already tried religion, the supernatural and conspiracy theories. None of them had given her the answers that she was looking for. Then she makes her boldest decision in Chapters 26-27 when she decides to find out what really happened to Mike on that fateful evening. Tracy soon finds out that the version of events that the family were given were not correct and that she didn’t know everything about her father. This was the most powerful part of the book for me as I thought that it was such a brave decision to make and I could understand her wish to at last know everything. I would have liked a line or two about Jackie and Emily’s current lives but perhaps they did not want to be included. But this was a powerful, uplifting memoir as I come from the same background and as Nile Rogers once put it ‘I’ve been swimming upstream all my life.’ My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.