For this installment of our weekly book reviews from Booklist, the American Library Association’s nationally distributed book and media review publication, we have Kaitlin Conner’s review of the audiobook of “Finding My Way,” written and read by Malala Yousafzai, first published January 1, 2026, in Booklist.
Enjoy.
Finding My Way
By Malala Yousafzai. Read by the author.
Oct. 2025. 9hr. Simon & Schuster Audio, DD, (9781668142493).
First published January 1, 2026 (Booklist).
In 2012, 15-year-old Pakistani female-education activist Malala Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, an event that catapulted her to global fame and led to her becoming the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history. While most listeners know of her extraordinary beginnings, fewer may be familiar with her life beyond the headlines. In Finding My Way, Yousafzai corrects the larger-than-life narratives surrounding her by intimately detailing her complicated coming of age. Struggling to make friends as a high school student in Birmingham, England, Yousafzai later found community with classmates at the University of Oxford, where she experienced first love, first heartbreak, and, notably, first (and last) bong hit, an experience that triggered flashbacks of her assassination attempt and led to her seeking therapy for PTSD. In 2018, she met Asser Malik, the man who would eventually become her husband; their long-distance courtship was marked by Yousafzai’s initial uncertainty about marriage. Yousafzai recalls these vulnerable moments and many others with a warm and inviting tone, her down-to-earth narration equal parts humble, hilarious, and heartrending as she reveals the messiness of her early twenties. Listeners will feel like they’re having a relatable conversation with their most accomplished friend.—Kaitlin Conner
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