They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us

Award-winning journalist Gupta (AOC: Fighter, Phenom, Changemaker) reveals how the perfection demanded by her father, in line with the myth of the model minority, fractured her and her family. In a memoir that addresses her mother, Gupta describes how her controlling father strove to force his family to become “perfect” Indian Americans—successful, well-off, ambitious, and seamlessly integrated into the fabric of American life. He ultimately created trauma within the family, pitting its members against each other with his volatile moods and misogynistic attitudes. Gupta obeyed her father’s wishes, becoming the high-achieving daughter he wanted, but she eventually found that she had to separate herself from her family to be happy. She narrates the audiobook, allowing her vulnerability to show and communicating the pain of being distant from her mother. Her emotional tones and engaging pacing pull listeners into her story of coming to terms with her complicated, often dysfunctional family.