The books opens with painful parts of childhood (temper tantrums, corporal punishment, dying pets) and I almost gave up to look for something lighter. Even though the book doesn't get any happier (a child's discomfort with class privilege amidst extreme inequality; death; an abusive mother) I'm glad I kept with it. The "selected memories" are fairly fractured, jumping ahead years at a time, but mostly focus on her relationships with family (I especially loved her descriptions of her father and her aunt) and friends (particularly Jesse, who helped radicalize her). She also touches on the disturbing effects of colonization (like her shock at being asked to write a story featuring Indian people, since all the books she read were about British children) and political corruption (I was inspired to Google Indira Gandhi and the Emergency). The writing is lush and vivid, and by the time I got to the end I felt very moved when she leaves her childhood behind. I wish she had written a follow up memoir.