Tara, her sister and brother were born into a family of anarcho-survivalist Mormons from the Idaho mountains. They were not registered at the registry office, never went to school, never saw a doctor. They grew up without books, without knowing what happens on the outside or what happened in the past. Ever since they were very young they have helped their parents with their work: in the summer, stew the herbs for the obstetric and healing mother; in winter, working in his father's dump, to recover metals. Up to seventeen years Tara has no idea what the Holocaust is or the attack on the Twin Towers. With his family, he prepares for the next end of the world, accumulating canned peaches in syrup and sleeping with the emergency bag always at hand. The climate at home is often heavy. The father is a Dostoevskian man, charismatic as crazy and unconscious, to the point of becoming dangerous. The brother is clearly disturbed and becomes violent with the sisters. The mother tries to help her but remains faithful to her beliefs and to the prescribed feminine submission. Then Tara makes a discovery: education. The possibility of becoming emancipated, of living a different life, of becoming a different person. A revelation. The story of a struggle for self-invention. A story of ferocious family loyalties and the regret that comes from severing the closest bonds. The dramatic core of the narrative revolves around the progressive freedom of thought of Tara and the lack of acceptance by parents and some of the brothers of such independence. Tara herself experiences this conflict with a profound sense of guilt. Exciting and well written.