Formation: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line
<b>Named by <i>Esquire</i> as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year: Chanel Miller's <i>Know My Name</i> meets Cheryl Strayed's <i>Wild</i> and Anthony Swofford's <i>Jarhead</i> in this powerful literary memoir of a young soldier driven to prove herself in a man's world.</b><br />Raised by powerful women in a restrictive, sheltered Christian community in New England, Ryan Dostie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But then a conversation with an Army recruiter in her high-school cafeteria changes the course of her life. Hired as a linguist, she quickly has to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks, and has been holding her own until the unthinkable happens: she is raped by a fellow soldier.<br />Struggling with PTSD and commanders who don't trust her story, Dostie finds herself fighting through the isolation of trauma amid the challenges of an unexpected war. What follows is a riveting story of one woman's extraordinary journey to prove her worth, physically and mentally, in a world where the odds are stacked against her.