Created

Educated, a New York Times bestseller, was the book that inspired the series of the same name, streaming on Netflix.

When Stephanie Land became pregnant as a result of a summer romance, her dreams of going to college to become a writer were abruptly cut short. A single mother with no education, no money, and no support other than the U.S. government’s food programs, she survived and cared for her daughter by working as a domestic worker for middle- and upper-class families, moving from shelter to shelter, from one disappointment to the next.

In this autobiography, which she transforms into a searing social chronicle, Land writes about the desperate stories of overburdened and underpaid Americans living perpetually below the poverty line, no matter how hard they work or how hard they try.

With intimate writing and an emotional perspective, Educated is also a story of overcoming adversity: the author’s studies at night, until she earned her degree and found the opportunity to reclaim her own life.