Finding My Way

by Malala Yousafzai

How do you rebuild yourself when your whole world changes overnight?

Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way—a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.

Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren’t perfect—they’re human.

In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her—while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny—and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Feminism, Autobiography

Audible Audio

First published October 21, 2025

About the author

Girls education activist and youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.

New memoir, FINDING MY WAY, and book tour tickets available for pre-order today!

Reviews

[SH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malala!!! The woman you are!!!! I could not love a memoir more. It was full of honesty and vulnerability. I may not have won a Nobel peace prize, but Malala was beyond relatable. Like sitting down for a cup of tea with your friend who unapologetically gets it and gets you. Cup is overflowing

[theliterateleprechaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful memoir, an honest look at Malala Yousafzai's life. You may remember her as the 15 year old girl who suffered as the result of a Taliban attack. She's taken charge of her destiny since becoming the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and has stepped out of the spotlight to navigate life on her terms.

I think the most impactful thing about this story is that this 28 year old reveals that it is ok to make mistakes along the way and that the journey to finding oneself isn't always paved in perfection.

I was happy to find this book as I had followed Malala's story and was curious about what happened in the years following her escape. I hope she continues to share with those of us who wish her well.

I was gifted this copy and was under no obligation to provide a review.

[Clare Mulroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible memoir with so much heart, humor and wisdom. I’m going to beg everyone in my life to read this.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful , genuine, and impressive human.

[Ashley 💙]

Pre-reading: I read Malala’s first memoir and was immersed. Looking forward to this one!

[Gina Dronamraju · Rating 5 out of 5]

STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND READ THIS BOOK!!

I am honestly speechless. I devoured this book because I could not put it down. Malala’s writing style is so warm and personal it felt like I was reading a letter from a friend. This book is beautiful, emotional, and full of honesty. It made me cry on more than one occasion and it made me reflect on my own life and feel deeply grateful for the freedoms and opportunities I have as a woman.
Malala shares her story with such strength and grace, and it reminded me how powerful it is when someone speaks their truth. It is easily my favorite read of 2025 so far. Everyone, not just women, should read this book. It is inspiring, moving, and one of those stories that stays with you long after you finish the last page.

[Emily Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir filled with honesty, authenticity and vulnerability. It’s such an engaging read - like having a chat with a friend, despite everything Malala has been through and accomplished. She writes about her university experience and mental health challenges openly and candidly, in a way that is deeply relatable to so many people. Malala’s wisdom and humour shines through on every page, balanced beautifully with her passion for girls’ education and her reflections and contemplations about life, marriage, trauma, friendship, love and growth. This is an inspiring and heart-felt read.

[Komal · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐
I started Finding My Way a bit skeptical but ended up deeply moved. The parts about her time at Oxford and her evolving relationship with her parents are the most engaging, funny, grounded, and full of warmth. I loved the glimpses into the messy realities of her activism and what it took to build a network of schools in remote parts of Pakistan and beyond while proving herself academically and adjusting to living in a new country. I also connected with her reflections on marriage and mental health—the exhaustion, the pressure, and the slow work of finding peace with both. Malala writes with striking clarity about hypocrisy, describing how first world male leaders who once championed her ignored her pleas to help evacuate Malala Fund teachers after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. She captures the tension of being both a product of global institutions and a critic of them, caught between gratitude and disillusionment. If there’s one thing I missed, it was a deeper engagement with the broader ideological criticism around her activism. She acknowledges the noise, but doesn’t really unpack it, and I wondered what her private reckoning with that might look like. Still, this is a thoughtful, layered, and often disarmingly funny portrait of a young woman defining herself under global scrutiny.

[Liv Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

MALALA YOU ARE EVERYTHING TO ME everyone needs to read this women are amazing

[Laura]

I love the way Malala wrote her life story. From a lonely girl, to a student struggling her way through college, to a young woman figuring out who she is and making peace with her past.

Listened to the audiobook while also reading the physical, but I always recommend the audiobook when the author is the narrator. This way I feel like the author connects you to their story and you can just feel the emotions.

Absolutely loved this!

[Anika (Encyclopedia BritAnika) · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you (or at least when I) think of Malala, you think of her heroism and bravery. You never stop to think how she was such a young girl. Just a teenager. Thrust into the global spotlight. Burdened with the weight of saving girls from going without an education. Moved to a country she didn't know. Still being governed by her small village illiterate mother. Malala is so forthcoming in this story and I was really grateful for it. She, like many immigrants, finds herself not only funding her own family with her speaking engagements, but also family back home, buying homes for them, paying college tuition, whatever her father offers their relatives. He offers her income, as he believes in our culture is his right and his duty. She is 16. She is a child trying to get by in school but knows she cannot turn down a single speaking engagement because that is money that pays her cousin's college tuition. Add in the constant refrain of "what will people say" from her parents every time she wants to do anything a little bit to assimilate to her new home in the UK. The weight of this is unimaginable. I was drowning just reading it. I was not surprised by her panic attacks as she navigated all of this at Oxford. I was also not surprised, sadly, how ill equipped she was for a support base to deal with these very real and scary mental health challenges because South Asians don't believe in mental health care. She just needed to suck it up and not complain. Every piece of me wanted to reach in that book and hug her. And walk her to therapy. She does go and I'm so happy for her. I was especially happy for her when she meets and eventually marries Asser, her very handsome, very supportive partner. The struggle she has getting to marriage and not wanting to give up her independence was very real and I appreciated her honesty. Also, I appreciated her humor. Malala is funny, y'all! Malala really gave us more than I ever expected in this memoir, on top of all she has given the world already.

[Beatrice Breckheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

6/5 ⭐️ One of my favorite books I’ve read this year, by far! I couldn’t put it down & read it in one sitting (sorry Sunday evening plans). I love Malala and find her work in women’s education so inspirational, so it’s no surprise I loved this (I’ve been waiting for months for the release date). This book far exceeded any expectations I had, though — it almost reads like a novel, with the stories & experiences she tells, woven in with past recounts and insightful reflections, advice, and learnings. I loved the sections she wrote about her mother because you can see the changes in both her reflection and relationship from her first book. I also loved hearing her convictions about gender equity, independence, marriage, and love — this is one of the first books I’ve related almost completely to someone on these topics, which was so affirming to read.

Malala, your stories & insights brought me to tears throughout this read (I probably spent half the book crying) and I’m so grateful you put this story into words!

[Samantha Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malala is the coolest. I really enjoyed hearing her speak so honestly about the pressures of being in the spotlight (while trying to perform well academically at Oxford), managing anxiety and PTSD, and how awful (and exhilarating) dating can be. I’m so glad she used this book as an opportunity to remind us that she’s just another human, experiencing the ups and downs like we all do. PS - She’s funny as hell.

[Brielle Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will always read anything she writes

[Adithi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first audiobook ever and it ate. Very interesting perspective + so refreshingly real. Free w Spotify premium

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books that I’ve read in a very long time. Relatable and full of hope.

[Alicia P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew, as most did, that Malala has been an advocate and voice for girls' right to an education since she was shot by the Taliban years ago. I read her first book, I am Malala, even teaching it to groups of my students. So, when I learned she had written a new book, I eagerly purchased the audiobook, read by Malala herself.

It was amazing. I knew Malala as a brave teen girl who stood up to evil forces. But this book shows the "after." It shows a Malala who goes to college at Oxford and struggles to stay on top of her grades and assignments. A young woman who wants to wear the cute jeans everyone else does, but has to hide it from her conservative parents. It shows a young woman in college not as a Nobel Peace prize winner, but someone struggling to find out who they are and what they want to do with their life.
Among other things, it shows a Malala who:
*loves to play poker
*tried pot in college
*went clubbing
*struggled with panic attacks and with discovering mental health treatment while facing the cultural stigmas against it
*was a leading advocate for education while also struggling struggling maintain her grades
*didn't believe in the institution of marriage as a whole (due to the patriarchy) but who managed to find a partner who loved and supported her dreams and ambitions, and
* is just trying to find her way in the world, like everyone else, and to maintain love for her family while acknowledging their struggles and limitations, to recognize you can be an advocate while also giving yourself time and space to breathe and decompress, and that falling in love and getting married doesn't have to limit your rights and freedoms, but can actually be freeing, in a way.

If you've followed Malala's story, you will love this refreshing snd homest view of the child who has grown into a woman wise, funny, flawed, and human. Such a great book!!

[Jadyn Right · Rating 5 out of 5]

i can't wait to hear her talk about this book on friday 🥹🥹

———————————————

220

After sharing the good news with everyone I knew, I collapsed backward on my bed, still buzzing with happiness. That’s when I realized: I won. From the time I was a girl, I had carried this dream of graduating from university, even when I didn’t know a single woman who had done it. I won’t be a teenage bride and spend my life wondering what I could have contributed to the world, I had told myself. I will go to college. The Taliban had forced me out of school when I was eleven years old and tried to kill me when I was fifteen. With bombs and guns, they’d fought against little girls who only wanted to learn, to understand the world around them. There were long periods of my childhood and teen years when even finishing high school seemed impossible.

I am not someone who believes everyone should go to college; I know plenty of brilliant people who don’t have a degree. But, for me, education was my guiding light, the only way I could save myself from a life I didn’t want.

Now, no matter where my life went next, I was a college graduate, and I always would be. It didn’t mean the end of misogyny or an enduring triumph for the right to education, of course. This was a personal victory. Between me and the men who’d tried to stop me, the fight was over. I had won.

———————————————

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you wondered what happened to the girl from I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World, Malala: My Story of Standing Up for Girls' Rights, Malala's Magic Pencil, and My Name Is Malala, wonder no longer.

[H.R.H. Carpathia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hardly ever read memoirs. Aside from this one, I have two on my shelf. I won this book in a giveaway thinking it was the first book as I had not realized she wrote another. Malala’s story is interesting and she showed herself here as someone far beyond the school girl shot by the Taliban. She has friends, yes, tangible friends and applies herself to fulfill her dream of furthering her education. She experiences falling in love and expresses her conflicting feelings about it which I can understand. She talks extensively on the importance of education for women and girls and how a lack of education can be damaging yet she also says she is not the sort who thinks everyone must go to college and I agree with this. In fact, I found her relatable in many ways. She talks about her struggles with a haunting past and how it nearly damaged her and learning she has PTSD. I am glad she did not shy away from what happens to people, mostly women, in certain lands. It is an ugly truth that people need to be more aware of. After all, knowing the truth will set you free.

[Callie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well-deserved follow-up to I AM MALALA. It was beautiful to see her growth and how she was still dealing with the intense ptsd in conjunction with getting shot. Malala is quite the inspiration, and I found her quite relatable, despite coming from very different cultures. If you read her first book, I highly recommend reading the follow-up. It’s a well-deserved part 2 to a very beautiful story.

[Shelby Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember being in 5th grade and seeing the headlines about Malala’s attack. Little shelby could not comprehend the concept that girls were experiencing violence for the simple concept of going to school, something I would dread doing. Being able to read Malala’s thoughts and contextualizations of her life and its influences was something much needed.
A common message throughout this book was Malala wishing to escape the fame, photos in public, and to be a ‘normal girl,’ which is exactly what was achieved. This book humanized Malala and her experience for me and I am so glad she dedicated time to writing this. I consistently related to her college life and pressure of family expectations, often succumbing to the intense anxiety that comes with it.
A rare five star read for me that I hope every woman reads.

[loreley god. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i started audiobooking this not soon after it was published. this is a birthday gift, in a way. i remember stealing her first book from my mom’s pile of birthday gifts back in our home in catania, sicily - and gradually making it my own. her story prompting girls’ education meant so much to me as just a fifth grader.

i loved this book. she shares college, which is like what i’m going through now. she shares how she fell in love. i’ll admit that hearing that both my mom AND malala had met their husbands before their 21st birthday before MY 21st birthday was maybe unnecessary - but i’m so happy she’s happy. finally, therapy. i know how big a deal therapy has been for me, so i’m glad malala has found similar solace.

i loved this book. eek!

[Susy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Again, a gripping, beautifully told, honest story full of inspiration. I loved listening to the narration by Malala herself though reading it physically would have made it possible to gather some quotes like I did with her first book.

Story 9
Atmosphere 10
Writing Style 9
Pace 9
Setup 8
Enjoyment/Engrossment 9
Narration 9

[Prakriti Kandel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Love grows by coming and going”

Reading “Finding my way” felt like spending a day with a girl-friend sharing the raw account of a young heart: aspirations, excitement, struggles, love & heartbreak, over breakfast, lunch and dinner. Authentic, relatable, and deeply human, this book reminds us that behind every public figure is a regular girl just trying to figure life out.

[Kim Irwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring. Scary and mind opening.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a memoir, autobiography, biography girl by any means but WOW did I love this. I can’t believe Malala was in her freshman year the same time I was. I appreciated her honesty throughout, especially on her relationship with her parents.

[Nayan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book!!! I feel so inspired and empowered after reading it. But most of all I feel grateful to have had the privilege to be educated! Thank you Malala for writing and sharing this book with us all!

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving and inspirational.