I read this book because both of my parents read it for their book clubs, and I had seen it mentioned all over as well. It definitely affected me more than I had anticipated; I started reading it thinking it would be a bit of a throwback to the dominant memoir genre of the mid-2000's (compellingly written memoir about the author's abusive/unique/uniquely abusive childhood, and how they recovered), and while it is that, what's lasted for me about the book goes far deeper.
The author grew up in a fundamentalist, survivalist Mormon home in Idaho in the nineties, and was homeschooled until she was accepted at Brigham Young University. She wasn't actually homeschooled, though--there was almost no actual formal teaching, and most of her time was spent either helping her father in his wrecking yard, or her mother as a midwife and naturopath. Her parents were abusive primarily via neglect; she was injured repeatedly because of her father's unwillingness to take any basic precautions with her safety, and any kind of medical treatment from outside the home was viewed as rejecting God's help and therefore evil. But she suffered more deliberate abuse at the hands of one of her older brothers, and I think the biggest shock about this book for me is that everyone in her immediate family actually survived.
The break from her family that she finally achieves via BYU and then eventually Cambridge and Harvard isn't as neat and as clean as I wanted it to be, nor is her anger at them as fully expressed as I desired it to be on her behalf. But her analysis of how her family existed within Mormonism and America is so cutting and much more nuanced than the instinctive blame I have of the structure of her family's faith for her young life--the Mormon church was also what got her out of her family's abuse, via education and a world outside of her mountain. She wrote a dissertation about how Mormonism fit into American culture as a whole in the 19th century, and I genuinely hope that eventually it is released as a popular history book, because this book made me want her perspective on the topic within an academic context. Her story of academic success is extraordinary for its uniqueness, but I think there's so much more that can be learned from her work than merely the ultimate 'overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve something' life lesson.
Grade: A
The author grew up in a fundamentalist, survivalist Mormon home in Idaho in the nineties, and was homeschooled until she was accepted at Brigham Young University. She wasn't actually homeschooled, though--there was almost no actual formal teaching, and most of her time was spent either helping her father in his wrecking yard, or her mother as a midwife and naturopath. Her parents were abusive primarily via neglect; she was injured repeatedly because of her father's unwillingness to take any basic precautions with her safety, and any kind of medical treatment from outside the home was viewed as rejecting God's help and therefore evil. But she suffered more deliberate abuse at the hands of one of her older brothers, and I think the biggest shock about this book for me is that everyone in her immediate family actually survived.
The break from her family that she finally achieves via BYU and then eventually Cambridge and Harvard isn't as neat and as clean as I wanted it to be, nor is her anger at them as fully expressed as I desired it to be on her behalf. But her analysis of how her family existed within Mormonism and America is so cutting and much more nuanced than the instinctive blame I have of the structure of her family's faith for her young life--the Mormon church was also what got her out of her family's abuse, via education and a world outside of her mountain. She wrote a dissertation about how Mormonism fit into American culture as a whole in the 19th century, and I genuinely hope that eventually it is released as a popular history book, because this book made me want her perspective on the topic within an academic context. Her story of academic success is extraordinary for its uniqueness, but I think there's so much more that can be learned from her work than merely the ultimate 'overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve something' life lesson.
Grade: A
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