Acceptance: A Memoir

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Synopsis
&“Nietfeld&’s gifts for capturing the fury of living at the mercy of bad circumstances, for critiquing the hero&’s journey even while she tells it, make Acceptance a remarkable memoir.&” —The New York Times Book ReviewA luminous, generation-defining memoir of foster care and homelessness, Harvard and Big Tech, examining society&’s fixation with resilience—and its costAs a homeless teenager writing college essays in her rusty Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that the Ivy League was the only escape from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. She had to prove that she was an &“overcomer,&” made stronger by all that she had endured.The truth was more complicated. Emi&’s mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics but believed in her daughter&’s brilliance—unlike the Minnesotan foster family who banned her &“pornographic&” art history flash cards (of Michelangelo&’s David). Emi&’s other parent vanished shortly after coming out as trans, a situation few understood in the mid-2000s. Her own past was filled with secrets: mental health struggles, Adderall addiction, and the unbecoming desperation of a teenager fending for herself. And though Emi would go on to graduate from Harvard and become a software engineer at Google, she found that success didn&’t necessarily mean safety.Both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it, this searing debut exposes the price of trading a troubled past for the promise of a bright future. Told with a ribbon of dark humor, Acceptance challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome—and find contentment on your own terms.
Copyright:
2022

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
368 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780593489482
Related ISBNs:
9780593489475
Publisher:
Penguin Publishing Group
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Emi Nietfeld
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Social Studies
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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