I have got one nonfiction book for you: Educated. This book always about this girl whose father didn't let her to go to school. It is set in the twentieth century and twenty-first and is set in America. It wasn't exactly what you're asking for, but later on she stands up, puts her foot down and decides to study for college at age 17. In my opinion, she did something very big. A seventeen year old, who has had no experience in a classroom and instead of starting her junior year at high school, has enough courage to start her freshman year in college, living alone for the first time, to get herself an education. The author is Tara Westover and writes it from her own POV.

I've heard so many great things about this book, like it was one of President Obama's favorite books of the year and that Bill Gates had it on his holiday reading list etc. etc. Anyway, I read it and I think that it would absolutely count as a book that can urge you to do something extraordinary and become something big even thought it might not seem possible. The author was kept out of school for her entire life by her survivalist family and it wasn't until she was 17 years old that she even managed to set foot in a classroom for the first time. Let that sink in for a moment, at an age when most of us were done with school, this girl experienced it for the first time ever. To sheer effort and dedication it took for her to even get started with her education makes me ashamed for all the time and effort that I dedicated to skipping school when I was younger. So much of what we take for granted in terms of knowledge and education was withheld from Tara, I mean she didn't even know what the Holocaust was when it was mentioned in her history class! It is not just inspirational that Tara went on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University and wrote a book that everyone from the president to Oprah has raved about, but the sheer guts and determination for her to take that first step and walk away from her family just blows my mind.