Troubled A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

Rob grew up in foster care, served in the military and studied at Yale and Cambridge. This puts him in the fairly unique position of having been surrounded by members of vastly different social classes: working, middle and upper. This memoir recounts how his experiences have shaped him and his beliefs.

This is, if nothing else, a compelling read. Rob has led such an eventful life it would be hard to write a boring book about it. However, I did sometimes get the feeling he held back in his recounting of early-life memories. It’s hard to blame him for this, given how traumatic they were and his struggles with overcoming this trauma. But from the selfish perspective of a reader, more rawness would have made his story even more compelling.

The memoir concludes with an exposition of Rob’s concept of luxury beliefs. This will not be new to readers of his Substack, but does pack some extra punch after ~300 pages of life experience leading up to it.