What do you think?
Rate this book
Uncultured: A Memoir
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Memoir & Autobiography (2022)In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.
Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.
But she soon learns that her new world—surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan—looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.
Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.
But she soon learns that her new world—surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan—looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.
339 pages, Hardcover
First published September 20, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,112 reviews
Read
January 11, 2023"This is a painful and propulsive memoir delivered in the honest tones of a woman who didn’t always think she’d live to tell her story."--The New York Times
I’m the author.
A few days after I woke up blind from a brain tumor pressing on my left eye, made only more intense because I was a soldier deployed to Afghanistan, my commander said to me, “Write it all down. Find the thread in the story of your life.”
Until then, I hadn’t thought of myself as a writer, only a voracious reader. After a life of being trafficked and abused throughout Asia and Latin America as a child born into the third generation of the religious sex cult, the Children of God, everything I knew about the outside world was through select Disney movies and surreptitious reading. I longed for the life of the typical American teenager, but when I got excommunicated and enrolled myself in a Houston high school, I felt like I was from another planet. Books saved my life then, and I read my way into college, into an honors degree in literature, into learning how to approach the world with a mind open to diverse viewpoints, rather than the extremist perspectives under which I’d been raised.
As a kid who’d been denied books, I wanted to read—everything. As a kid who’d been beaten for asking questions, I wanted to analyze arguments, understand the phrases chosen, and question—everything. And when I commissioned into the Army, in a time of war, it was to do just that. To study the world and groups of people in it, analyze the intelligence, and attempt to help predict what the bad guys would do next.
But a woman in the Army is never the good guy no matter how hard we play the game, and I carried my experience as a cult survivor along with the heavy duffel bag I hoisted toward the sky for hours while the drill sergeants yelled. I noticed the similarities to my earlier life from the first moment I boarded the Army bus that would take me to my new life.
I just joined another cult.
What I came to understand, through writing, is that the military and the cult had a lot more in common than I ever wanted to admit—more than any of us strong, proud Americans would like to admit. And in both of those worlds, trying to fit myself into the mold of what was expected of women nearly killed me.
But I survived.
UNCULTURED is a memoir; the almost-unbelievable story of my life in closed-off groups operating in secrecy throughout the world. But I hope UNCULTURED is more than that, and gives you a new perspective from which to examine the groups you love and see how you might be contorting and defining yourself by the group’s rules, ones that aren’t your own.
Groups can be a prison, but they can also be a place for our liberation. The difference is freedom.
UNCULTURED tells the story of my life in groups, and of my attempt to find that thread…toward freedom.
Sincerely, Daniella Mestyanek Young
I’m the author.
A few days after I woke up blind from a brain tumor pressing on my left eye, made only more intense because I was a soldier deployed to Afghanistan, my commander said to me, “Write it all down. Find the thread in the story of your life.”
Until then, I hadn’t thought of myself as a writer, only a voracious reader. After a life of being trafficked and abused throughout Asia and Latin America as a child born into the third generation of the religious sex cult, the Children of God, everything I knew about the outside world was through select Disney movies and surreptitious reading. I longed for the life of the typical American teenager, but when I got excommunicated and enrolled myself in a Houston high school, I felt like I was from another planet. Books saved my life then, and I read my way into college, into an honors degree in literature, into learning how to approach the world with a mind open to diverse viewpoints, rather than the extremist perspectives under which I’d been raised.
As a kid who’d been denied books, I wanted to read—everything. As a kid who’d been beaten for asking questions, I wanted to analyze arguments, understand the phrases chosen, and question—everything. And when I commissioned into the Army, in a time of war, it was to do just that. To study the world and groups of people in it, analyze the intelligence, and attempt to help predict what the bad guys would do next.
But a woman in the Army is never the good guy no matter how hard we play the game, and I carried my experience as a cult survivor along with the heavy duffel bag I hoisted toward the sky for hours while the drill sergeants yelled. I noticed the similarities to my earlier life from the first moment I boarded the Army bus that would take me to my new life.
I just joined another cult.
What I came to understand, through writing, is that the military and the cult had a lot more in common than I ever wanted to admit—more than any of us strong, proud Americans would like to admit. And in both of those worlds, trying to fit myself into the mold of what was expected of women nearly killed me.
But I survived.
UNCULTURED is a memoir; the almost-unbelievable story of my life in closed-off groups operating in secrecy throughout the world. But I hope UNCULTURED is more than that, and gives you a new perspective from which to examine the groups you love and see how you might be contorting and defining yourself by the group’s rules, ones that aren’t your own.
Groups can be a prison, but they can also be a place for our liberation. The difference is freedom.
UNCULTURED tells the story of my life in groups, and of my attempt to find that thread…toward freedom.
Sincerely, Daniella Mestyanek Young
October 20, 2022
CW for post: Discussions of Racism, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Xenophobia in the book. Discussion of sexism experienced by the author. Discussion of US military presence in Afghanistan detailed in the book.
This was an incredibly disappointing read to say the least. It started off great- the author does a really amazing job of recounting her experience growing up in the The Children of God and I'm so happy that she was able to tell her story and I can only hope that writing this memoir offered her some modicum of healing and catharsis.
However, and this a huge however, what was not made clear to me was that 50% of this book was going to be about her time in the army. At first I thought, 'well, maybe this will be a condemnation of the US army and the war crimes & atrocities it has committed abroad.' No. It was a condemnation of how the army has treated women, the environment of casual and deeply rooted sexism & rape culture that it fostered. And while of course those are important stories that need to be told and heard, I cannot condone it when it does not also come with at least some acknowledgement that the US military is a vile, imperialistic entity. This details the author's experience deployed in Afghanistan in the late 00s and early 2010s- a very significant chunk of the book is about the missions they carried out and the military's presence in Afghanistan. About how hard the author worked to be allowed to see active combat while deployed. Not once, in any meaningful way, does the author discuss the US military's war crimes committed in the region. She does discuss a singular instance in which she was shocked that her fellow soldiers did not have a problem with carrying out torture if it could save American lives. That was it though. She does not even try to address the havoc the US military wreaked on the country or the Afghans it killed. She plays into the incredibly harmful, racist, inaccurate, and reductive narrative that the Americans are in Afghanistan because they are fighting 'terrorists.' The book includes the use of a slur against Muslims twice in the book.
There is some condemnation of the US military in the book but not in the way that you might hope. The author writes, "I wanted the army to love me, even though I was so different. I wanted the army to be better, to be a place where I belonged. Where women belong." And that's the crux of her criticism. It's accurate to say that the American military is terrible to American women, it's true. But the American military is also awful to Afghan women. It's terrible to Pakistani women. It's terrible to Iraqi women. It's terrible to women, children, and men across the globe. There is no acknowledgement of the harm the military has done to them. The book includes so much casual american military propoganda, racism, and imperialism with no meaningful condemnation. And that is not something I can abide. The author mentions how proud she is that she was trail blazer for women to be allowed into active combat roles. At length, she talks about how absurd the ban on women in combat duty is because women can help military operations succeed. She does not talk about the fact that the US military should not be carrying out those missions in the first place. This is a classic example of white feminism- celebrating that women can finally be actively carrying out the racist and imperialistic agenda of the US government just like men can.
Additionally, I want to note that the book also includes seven (yes, SEVEN) uses of a slur against lesbians. Despite the surface level acceptance of queer people, there was a lot of casual homophobia & lesbophobia throughout the book. Multiple times the author mentions how many women in the military were assumed to be gay and chafes at the insinuation. She also mentioned how many women are called a slur and accused of being lesbians when they do things like have close friendships with other women. But she doesn't really acknowledge or try to unpack the lesbophobia that underlies that behavior or environment. She doesn't ever acknowledge how awful it must be for queer women (or queer men) who were on base with her.
So no, I definitely do not recommend this book. Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the audiobook ARC.
content warnings:
-extremely explicit triggers: sexual assault, pedophilia, child sexual assault, child negelct, child abuse, injury/injury detail, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, suicide, murder, racism, anti-Muslim slurs, anti-lesbian slurs, homophobia, domestic abuse, toxic relationship, sexism, silencing of victims, war, grief, religious bigotry, torture, lesbophobia, trafficking, medical trauma, grief, abandonment, xenophobia
-other triggers: cancer, self harm, infidelity, 9/11
This was an incredibly disappointing read to say the least. It started off great- the author does a really amazing job of recounting her experience growing up in the The Children of God and I'm so happy that she was able to tell her story and I can only hope that writing this memoir offered her some modicum of healing and catharsis.
However, and this a huge however, what was not made clear to me was that 50% of this book was going to be about her time in the army. At first I thought, 'well, maybe this will be a condemnation of the US army and the war crimes & atrocities it has committed abroad.' No. It was a condemnation of how the army has treated women, the environment of casual and deeply rooted sexism & rape culture that it fostered. And while of course those are important stories that need to be told and heard, I cannot condone it when it does not also come with at least some acknowledgement that the US military is a vile, imperialistic entity. This details the author's experience deployed in Afghanistan in the late 00s and early 2010s- a very significant chunk of the book is about the missions they carried out and the military's presence in Afghanistan. About how hard the author worked to be allowed to see active combat while deployed. Not once, in any meaningful way, does the author discuss the US military's war crimes committed in the region. She does discuss a singular instance in which she was shocked that her fellow soldiers did not have a problem with carrying out torture if it could save American lives. That was it though. She does not even try to address the havoc the US military wreaked on the country or the Afghans it killed. She plays into the incredibly harmful, racist, inaccurate, and reductive narrative that the Americans are in Afghanistan because they are fighting 'terrorists.' The book includes the use of a slur against Muslims twice in the book.
There is some condemnation of the US military in the book but not in the way that you might hope. The author writes, "I wanted the army to love me, even though I was so different. I wanted the army to be better, to be a place where I belonged. Where women belong." And that's the crux of her criticism. It's accurate to say that the American military is terrible to American women, it's true. But the American military is also awful to Afghan women. It's terrible to Pakistani women. It's terrible to Iraqi women. It's terrible to women, children, and men across the globe. There is no acknowledgement of the harm the military has done to them. The book includes so much casual american military propoganda, racism, and imperialism with no meaningful condemnation. And that is not something I can abide. The author mentions how proud she is that she was trail blazer for women to be allowed into active combat roles. At length, she talks about how absurd the ban on women in combat duty is because women can help military operations succeed. She does not talk about the fact that the US military should not be carrying out those missions in the first place. This is a classic example of white feminism- celebrating that women can finally be actively carrying out the racist and imperialistic agenda of the US government just like men can.
Additionally, I want to note that the book also includes seven (yes, SEVEN) uses of a slur against lesbians. Despite the surface level acceptance of queer people, there was a lot of casual homophobia & lesbophobia throughout the book. Multiple times the author mentions how many women in the military were assumed to be gay and chafes at the insinuation. She also mentioned how many women are called a slur and accused of being lesbians when they do things like have close friendships with other women. But she doesn't really acknowledge or try to unpack the lesbophobia that underlies that behavior or environment. She doesn't ever acknowledge how awful it must be for queer women (or queer men) who were on base with her.
So no, I definitely do not recommend this book. Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the audiobook ARC.
content warnings:
-extremely explicit triggers: sexual assault, pedophilia, child sexual assault, child negelct, child abuse, injury/injury detail, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, suicide, murder, racism, anti-Muslim slurs, anti-lesbian slurs, homophobia, domestic abuse, toxic relationship, sexism, silencing of victims, war, grief, religious bigotry, torture, lesbophobia, trafficking, medical trauma, grief, abandonment, xenophobia
-other triggers: cancer, self harm, infidelity, 9/11
September 8, 2022
Trigger warnings for serious sexual abuse, child abuse, emotional abuse, etc.
This was an amazing book. Written beautifully. Absolutely grabs you and does not let you go. Reading this shattered my heart. I desperately wanted to save these kids. Even as Daniella grew to be an adult, I still felt like i had to fight motherly instincts to help her through the pages. Her story is so important for us all to understand...this stuff is still happening. I highly recommend this to those who have interest in cult mentality, and those who escape such horrific conditions. It is both heartbreaking and empowering. Serious warnings for those who are sensitive to reading about child abuse.
This was an amazing book. Written beautifully. Absolutely grabs you and does not let you go. Reading this shattered my heart. I desperately wanted to save these kids. Even as Daniella grew to be an adult, I still felt like i had to fight motherly instincts to help her through the pages. Her story is so important for us all to understand...this stuff is still happening. I highly recommend this to those who have interest in cult mentality, and those who escape such horrific conditions. It is both heartbreaking and empowering. Serious warnings for those who are sensitive to reading about child abuse.
May 10, 2024
Trigger warning in this review. Cults, child sexual abuse. Not sure how else to say it, but it's what they did.
I would be turning sixteen in six months -a full adult in the eyes of The Family. To most of us teenagers, that meant two things: we could have sex and we could vote. Since the Charter, voting had become a big deal in our homes. We called a home vote to decide every aspect of our lives. At least with the ability to vote, I felt like I might have a say. And sex, well, we just wouldn’t have to hide it from the world anymore.
It seems sex before menstruation (and much earlier) was ok to this population, and that children as young as six months were punished forcibly. There was not a day Daniella wasn’t abused, and she was always looking over her shoulder because of these daily beatings, padellings, slaps. She did not know she was in a cult; a cult was what happened in Waco, not where they were. Where they were God loved sex, and only the Devil that demonised it. They lived in constant fear, the adults continually prepping the children with answers and explanations to pass away the aberrations if they were ever questioned. They had to study the teachings, spending hours a day. This included no school.
I never would have thought, in all my reading years, that I would read a book about The Children of God. I would like to thank Allen & Unwin for my uncorrected physical proof copy to read and review.
I know a woman who had been involved in this awful group, as a child and therefore unwilling, and I know there is much trauma from this. How couldn’t there be. I feel bad that I didn’t learn more about it, I suppose I was bringing up my family and didn’t realise the extent.
This memoir comes from the granddaughter of one of the founders. It covers her time there and her life afterwards, when she joined the American Military, which she describes as going from one cult to another. Women don’t get a fair chance in either of these establishments, but I think the author has shone a well-deserved light.
I was troubled by so much of the content, children being treated appallingly (all by God’s will of course) to satisfy the appetites of adults, and their warped desires. I googled a lot here, and nearly fell off my chair when I stumbled across The Story of Davidito, an almost 800-page manifesto on how to rear children in the COG, using babies as sexual beings. This man ended up killing his abuser, then himself such trauma he’d faced being unable to continue living.
This is a well written memoir, by a woman lucky enough to remove herself from something shocking, she was able to educate herself (books saved her life it seems) and still have love for her mother, who was only a baby herself when she gave birth to Daniella. Amazingly, when removed from the cult, her mother found an excellent job, and was able to thrive outside the commune, which has offshoots all over the world.
Daniella proved herself to be strong, smart and resilient, and earning herself a strong reputation in the American military as a woman who was able to move up the ranks, do good and come out the other end.
This memoir should only be read on the proviso that the reader is prepared for extremely sensitive content, but it is an important story which was written with outstanding quality and bravery.
Her website shows she has made a difference in many ways. I do highly recommend this hard to read and confronting memoir told by an interesting, courageous and honest woman.
My thanks to Allen & Unwin for my copy to read and review.
I would be turning sixteen in six months -a full adult in the eyes of The Family. To most of us teenagers, that meant two things: we could have sex and we could vote. Since the Charter, voting had become a big deal in our homes. We called a home vote to decide every aspect of our lives. At least with the ability to vote, I felt like I might have a say. And sex, well, we just wouldn’t have to hide it from the world anymore.
It seems sex before menstruation (and much earlier) was ok to this population, and that children as young as six months were punished forcibly. There was not a day Daniella wasn’t abused, and she was always looking over her shoulder because of these daily beatings, padellings, slaps. She did not know she was in a cult; a cult was what happened in Waco, not where they were. Where they were God loved sex, and only the Devil that demonised it. They lived in constant fear, the adults continually prepping the children with answers and explanations to pass away the aberrations if they were ever questioned. They had to study the teachings, spending hours a day. This included no school.
I never would have thought, in all my reading years, that I would read a book about The Children of God. I would like to thank Allen & Unwin for my uncorrected physical proof copy to read and review.
I know a woman who had been involved in this awful group, as a child and therefore unwilling, and I know there is much trauma from this. How couldn’t there be. I feel bad that I didn’t learn more about it, I suppose I was bringing up my family and didn’t realise the extent.
This memoir comes from the granddaughter of one of the founders. It covers her time there and her life afterwards, when she joined the American Military, which she describes as going from one cult to another. Women don’t get a fair chance in either of these establishments, but I think the author has shone a well-deserved light.
I was troubled by so much of the content, children being treated appallingly (all by God’s will of course) to satisfy the appetites of adults, and their warped desires. I googled a lot here, and nearly fell off my chair when I stumbled across The Story of Davidito, an almost 800-page manifesto on how to rear children in the COG, using babies as sexual beings. This man ended up killing his abuser, then himself such trauma he’d faced being unable to continue living.
This is a well written memoir, by a woman lucky enough to remove herself from something shocking, she was able to educate herself (books saved her life it seems) and still have love for her mother, who was only a baby herself when she gave birth to Daniella. Amazingly, when removed from the cult, her mother found an excellent job, and was able to thrive outside the commune, which has offshoots all over the world.
Daniella proved herself to be strong, smart and resilient, and earning herself a strong reputation in the American military as a woman who was able to move up the ranks, do good and come out the other end.
This memoir should only be read on the proviso that the reader is prepared for extremely sensitive content, but it is an important story which was written with outstanding quality and bravery.
Her website shows she has made a difference in many ways. I do highly recommend this hard to read and confronting memoir told by an interesting, courageous and honest woman.
My thanks to Allen & Unwin for my copy to read and review.
November 17, 2023
This is a Memoir. This book is very hard to read at times, and there are a lot of triggers in this book. This book is also very touching, and it will make you think about things. I feel this is a well written book, and I really enjoyed reading it because how much this book made me think about things. I think that Daniella is a very strong woman to go through everything she did. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook of this book, and I would say you should check out the audiobook for this book. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Press) or author (Daniella Mestyanek Young) via NetGalley, so I can give an honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.
March 11, 2024
3.5 Stars 🌟 This is a hard one to review. I am so sorry to Daniella Mestyanek Young for the abuse she endured. She was remarkably resilient considering all she lived through.
I am so moved by the awful experiences Daniella Mestyanek Young went through. My heart hurt for her. The book begins with her living on at a large cult compound for The Children of God with her parents. The joy of childhood has been robbed from these children. It was shocking the level of abuse that occurred. Daniella learns that people outside The Family, as her cult is called, can not be trusted. So, that leaves inside, and every bad occurrence means the person somehow did something against God. Daniella never felt safe, every day she wakes up scared and knows she will be beaten and possibly sexually abused by different Uncles. These are the people who are supposed to love and protect her and all the children.
She is constantly moving in California, then to Mexico where she is begging for money on the street. It is a life filled with constant chaos. Finally, at 15 years old she has the insight to realize the people she is listening to are just liars.
This is where I thought the book dragged. Daniella decides to join the Army. I do think she had a good story to relate here, but it needed to be condensed. She is picked for Infantry Duty and this is a tough group, especially when there are so few women. The culture seems to allow men to intimidate women, call them derogatory names, and harass them. It is not easy to adopt to. It has been discussed that sexual harassment in the military is a problem. The men warn Daniella that ‘she needs to be careful’ since rape occurs frequently. At one point, Daniella is dating a man and at the end of the relationship he goes into a rage and rapes her. She is livid, but doesn’t tell anyone. She knows it will end her career. I did feel for her, as she has lived with abuse her entire life and thinks if she is strong and tough she will be able to stop the abuse. She feels she has lost all control, yet something inside her fights to be tough and carry on. No one should ever be put in this type of situation. It should not be considered the victim’s fault and that person must change to adapt to assault to keep their career.
Then too many issues come up to figure out. Daniella does not want to sign a paper saying she did not handle a sexual harassment case properly. After all she has gone through, she just can not go along with this. This is understandable and it may well point to a larger problem in the way cases like this are handled. She does have legal assistance and another women’s case is brought in. As a reader, I found this hard to completely follow.
After this, Daniella becomes extremely ill and is at Walter Reed Medical Center. She is having severe physical problems and is there for two months. It seems her body has exhausted itself. So, taking on the horrific abuse of the cult and also how the Military is handling things is more then enough trauma. It should have stopped there. These are enormous topics to explore.
Daniella ends up meeting President Obama and he gives her a Volunteer Service Award. She marries her caring husband, Tom. Both have had military careers. They have a beautiful daughter. Daniella says she and Tom need to always give their daughter safety and love. She is healing by going to groups for cult survivors and military assault victims. She does know abuse is always wrong. So, she is certainly a strong person and I wish her peace. She is correct that she gets to have the say now and decide her own life.
The other messages and topics are a little raw and unfinished. There is not a natural writing flow. It is more just getting all her feeling out and problems groups can cause and honestly that needed some editing. She may have been processing all that happened and is writing it down, but perhaps it needed to wait and then make a more cohesive statement.
Thank you NetGalley, Daniella Mestyanek Young, and Macmillan Audio for an audio copy of this book. I am always happy to leave a review.
I am so moved by the awful experiences Daniella Mestyanek Young went through. My heart hurt for her. The book begins with her living on at a large cult compound for The Children of God with her parents. The joy of childhood has been robbed from these children. It was shocking the level of abuse that occurred. Daniella learns that people outside The Family, as her cult is called, can not be trusted. So, that leaves inside, and every bad occurrence means the person somehow did something against God. Daniella never felt safe, every day she wakes up scared and knows she will be beaten and possibly sexually abused by different Uncles. These are the people who are supposed to love and protect her and all the children.
She is constantly moving in California, then to Mexico where she is begging for money on the street. It is a life filled with constant chaos. Finally, at 15 years old she has the insight to realize the people she is listening to are just liars.
This is where I thought the book dragged. Daniella decides to join the Army. I do think she had a good story to relate here, but it needed to be condensed. She is picked for Infantry Duty and this is a tough group, especially when there are so few women. The culture seems to allow men to intimidate women, call them derogatory names, and harass them. It is not easy to adopt to. It has been discussed that sexual harassment in the military is a problem. The men warn Daniella that ‘she needs to be careful’ since rape occurs frequently. At one point, Daniella is dating a man and at the end of the relationship he goes into a rage and rapes her. She is livid, but doesn’t tell anyone. She knows it will end her career. I did feel for her, as she has lived with abuse her entire life and thinks if she is strong and tough she will be able to stop the abuse. She feels she has lost all control, yet something inside her fights to be tough and carry on. No one should ever be put in this type of situation. It should not be considered the victim’s fault and that person must change to adapt to assault to keep their career.
Then too many issues come up to figure out. Daniella does not want to sign a paper saying she did not handle a sexual harassment case properly. After all she has gone through, she just can not go along with this. This is understandable and it may well point to a larger problem in the way cases like this are handled. She does have legal assistance and another women’s case is brought in. As a reader, I found this hard to completely follow.
After this, Daniella becomes extremely ill and is at Walter Reed Medical Center. She is having severe physical problems and is there for two months. It seems her body has exhausted itself. So, taking on the horrific abuse of the cult and also how the Military is handling things is more then enough trauma. It should have stopped there. These are enormous topics to explore.
Daniella ends up meeting President Obama and he gives her a Volunteer Service Award. She marries her caring husband, Tom. Both have had military careers. They have a beautiful daughter. Daniella says she and Tom need to always give their daughter safety and love. She is healing by going to groups for cult survivors and military assault victims. She does know abuse is always wrong. So, she is certainly a strong person and I wish her peace. She is correct that she gets to have the say now and decide her own life.
The other messages and topics are a little raw and unfinished. There is not a natural writing flow. It is more just getting all her feeling out and problems groups can cause and honestly that needed some editing. She may have been processing all that happened and is writing it down, but perhaps it needed to wait and then make a more cohesive statement.
Thank you NetGalley, Daniella Mestyanek Young, and Macmillan Audio for an audio copy of this book. I am always happy to leave a review.
September 27, 2022
TW for Rape and SA this is a cult book so you expect it but it's still a story about rape even after she gets out of the cult. I am really hoping for a hopeful end of this memoir!
I am going to be honest here this book was way too trigger for me the entire book is about rape and sexual assault .There is a half an hour of the book where she talks about not getting raped while she is the army and it’s all just too much for I made it 70% and I am giving up I may go listen to the end of the book just to see if there is anything at all hopeful in this book otherwise this is just a book about rape.
Also the Islamophobia when she was at war was tough to listen to. This is also where this book bogs down. I know women in the military have a very high chance of being SA’d and I know how hard it is for women in military. I feel like this book was more about her time in the military than her time in the cult, I understand that her time in the cult colored her entire life but honestly the cult part of the book was over early on.
I am sorry I wanted so much to like this book but it was too much.
2 stars
I received this book from the publisher Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a fair and honest review.
I am going to be honest here this book was way too trigger for me the entire book is about rape and sexual assault .There is a half an hour of the book where she talks about not getting raped while she is the army and it’s all just too much for I made it 70% and I am giving up I may go listen to the end of the book just to see if there is anything at all hopeful in this book otherwise this is just a book about rape.
Also the Islamophobia when she was at war was tough to listen to. This is also where this book bogs down. I know women in the military have a very high chance of being SA’d and I know how hard it is for women in military. I feel like this book was more about her time in the military than her time in the cult, I understand that her time in the cult colored her entire life but honestly the cult part of the book was over early on.
I am sorry I wanted so much to like this book but it was too much.
2 stars
I received this book from the publisher Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a fair and honest review.
May 23, 2022
I finished Uncultured about a month ago, and I can’t get it out of my head. Here’s why I'm recommending it to friends:
1. The book introduced me to weird, compelling worlds that I’ll never witness myself. I’ll never grow up in a cult or fight in Afghanistan. I would never consider these two situations to be similar in any way, but we see, clearly, the are echoes of cultism in our military, which is a thought-provoking idea to say the least.
2. I cared for this narrator. That’s possibly the highest praise I can give a book. I was sad and angry for all she endured as a child. I still am. I’ll never listen to Fleetwood Mac the same way again. Through her frustrating, demoralizing experiences in the Army, I rooted for her to keep working toward a healthy, happy, existence, and I was satisfied at the end, wanting to let the author know how proud of her I was.
3. The writing kept me engaged the whole way through. I’m a critical reader and am often turned off, pushed away, by sloppy phrasing or typos or a lack of honesty. This book pulled me in and allowed me to become fully engrossed in the story. It was clever, professional, and well written.
1. The book introduced me to weird, compelling worlds that I’ll never witness myself. I’ll never grow up in a cult or fight in Afghanistan. I would never consider these two situations to be similar in any way, but we see, clearly, the are echoes of cultism in our military, which is a thought-provoking idea to say the least.
2. I cared for this narrator. That’s possibly the highest praise I can give a book. I was sad and angry for all she endured as a child. I still am. I’ll never listen to Fleetwood Mac the same way again. Through her frustrating, demoralizing experiences in the Army, I rooted for her to keep working toward a healthy, happy, existence, and I was satisfied at the end, wanting to let the author know how proud of her I was.
3. The writing kept me engaged the whole way through. I’m a critical reader and am often turned off, pushed away, by sloppy phrasing or typos or a lack of honesty. This book pulled me in and allowed me to become fully engrossed in the story. It was clever, professional, and well written.
April 5, 2023
- thanks to @allenandunwin for my #gifted copy
Uncultured is a very tough Memoir to review. As I always say, Memoir is the most challenging genre for me to review, but it's even harder when the topics covered range from sexual abuse (in a cult and while in the military) to neglect, PTSD and rape. Who can honestly decide which is 'the best way' to tell such a story? Certainly not me. Nevertheless, I can comment on how this story is written (structure-wise) and how it made me feel.
I must admit I went into Uncultured thinking I would be reading the story of a woman that grew up in The Children of God cult. However, I did not know that half of the book would be dedicated to the author's experience in the US military. I am not interested in militia stories (fictional or not), so doubtlessly, it's on me that I ended up reading a type of story that, had I researched a bit more before reading, I would not have chosen to read in the first place.
The first half of the book was equally moving and horrifying. At the same time, the writing style was ponderous and far from nuanced. The tone quickly changed from vulnerable to entirely detached, even on the same page. I also felt that crucial moments from her life were missing from the narrative. The first few years she spends outside of the cult are the ones I was most looking forward to reading, yet there's barely any coverage of those significant years.
While I could empathise with the author's effort to spread awareness of women's vulnerability in the military, I also couldn't stop wondering: why would she fight so hard to be part of one the most violent and terrible organisations in the world? I tried, but I could not refrain from my own judgement. The author mentions many times that books saved her life, yet I did not understand why she did not honour that passion instead.
Overall, Uncultured is a challenging Memoir with considerable writing deficiencies and a long list of triggering themes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can recommend this book to other readers.
Uncultured is a very tough Memoir to review. As I always say, Memoir is the most challenging genre for me to review, but it's even harder when the topics covered range from sexual abuse (in a cult and while in the military) to neglect, PTSD and rape. Who can honestly decide which is 'the best way' to tell such a story? Certainly not me. Nevertheless, I can comment on how this story is written (structure-wise) and how it made me feel.
I must admit I went into Uncultured thinking I would be reading the story of a woman that grew up in The Children of God cult. However, I did not know that half of the book would be dedicated to the author's experience in the US military. I am not interested in militia stories (fictional or not), so doubtlessly, it's on me that I ended up reading a type of story that, had I researched a bit more before reading, I would not have chosen to read in the first place.
The first half of the book was equally moving and horrifying. At the same time, the writing style was ponderous and far from nuanced. The tone quickly changed from vulnerable to entirely detached, even on the same page. I also felt that crucial moments from her life were missing from the narrative. The first few years she spends outside of the cult are the ones I was most looking forward to reading, yet there's barely any coverage of those significant years.
While I could empathise with the author's effort to spread awareness of women's vulnerability in the military, I also couldn't stop wondering: why would she fight so hard to be part of one the most violent and terrible organisations in the world? I tried, but I could not refrain from my own judgement. The author mentions many times that books saved her life, yet I did not understand why she did not honour that passion instead.
Overall, Uncultured is a challenging Memoir with considerable writing deficiencies and a long list of triggering themes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can recommend this book to other readers.
January 17, 2023
3.5~4★ [WARNING: abuse and language]
“By the mid-seventies an estimated thirty thousand people were on the active membership rolls of the Children of God from all over the US and the group had spread to at least fifteen countries.
Spotting a way to differentiate himself from all the other new religious movements sprouting up, [David] Berg started preaching how much God loved sex, that the Devil was the one who had demonized it.”
The author was one of those Children, the child, in fact, of one of the earlier Children. Later in life, when her commander was introduced to her mother, he said:
“ ‘You look far too young to have so many children. What were you, fourteen?’
My mother, an expert in cult Uncles, the woman I had always seen as shy, looked my commander straight in the eye and said with her chin high and a confident, unwavering voice, ‘Yes, I was. That was Daniella.’”
Like many readers, I was expecting a memoir mostly about life in the cult, what it meant to be born into it, what the day-to-day routines were, what the relationships were like. I knew she joined the army after escaping but didn’t realise that most of the book is about her time there.
To be fair, it is Daniella’s memoir, not a history of the cult in which she spent ‘only’ the first 15 years of her life, formative though they were. She is under no obligation to limit her story to the part that is hidden from outsiders, just because we’re curious. In her case, the cult prepared her for life in the army as one of the rare women in combat.
Resilient doesn’t begin to describe her. She grows up small, tough, competitive, fleet-footed and quick-witted. If she can’t do something better than everyone else, she keeps working at it until she can. Of course we hear about the Uncles and abuse of women and children. We are told the children perform and beg on the streets in public, but I didn’t get much of a sense of what it was like, other than she learned to ‘perform’ as necessary, a skill that was useful as an adult.
When the leader, Berg, died, the cult modified some rules (no more babies at 14), but after living in other countries all her life, Daniella escaped to Texas where her mother and some sisters joined her, aced her way through high school and college, and found another cult, the US Army.
Most of the book is about her time in the Army and how she tries to maintain some sense of stability. She’s a runner, one of the fastest the Army has seen, so she runs, but she has to choose her times and places carefully. Her friend John is also fast and often runs with her.
She also likes salsa dancing as a release, but she is warned by a captain.
“ ‘Daniella, I know you’re new, but you need to be very careful. People are already talking about you and he guys you hang out with. Be careful with John.’
This topic exasperated me. Maybe it was the familiar salsa beat echoing in the restaurant, but I had just enough stamina to attempt to navigate it.
‘Sir, I appreciate the concern, but who should I hang out with, honestly?’ I gestured to Tiffany.”
The only other females are on different shifts in different places. She asks should she just sit in her room for a whole year, to ‘be respected’? Tiffany asks the same. The captain replies.
“ ‘I mean, I get it. It’s hard for you ladies… you know, before I got over here, I used to think that the women who said they were scared were just being dramatic. But the more I get used to what it’s like over here, the more I think that you probably WILL get raped on this deployment.’
For a moment, I thought maybe I had misheard him. But he barreled on, completely unaware of my shock or the stunned look on Tiffany’s face.”
That conversation echoes in her mind often after that. She knows she needs structure in her life, the kind of structure a military life provides, where someone else decides what is your responsibility and what isn’t .
She has developed survival instincts as a cult child that continue to serve her well in the army – tune out, separate your mind from your body so you’re not really ‘here’ when the Uncles are beating you – or worse. In the Army, it’s not the Uncles.
She was raised in several countries, speaking different languages, and she now has a formal education about the real world outside the cult. She is both fearless and fearful, a powerful combination. Even if she has little to lose, she’s absolutely determined not to lose it.
Her story is unique, going from a religious (so-called) cult into the army. I can only admire her tenacity. It isn’t a page-turner, and I didn’t learn anything new about cults or army life, but I’m sure this will be an eye-opener for a lot of readers.
Thanks to Allen and Unwin for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
“By the mid-seventies an estimated thirty thousand people were on the active membership rolls of the Children of God from all over the US and the group had spread to at least fifteen countries.
Spotting a way to differentiate himself from all the other new religious movements sprouting up, [David] Berg started preaching how much God loved sex, that the Devil was the one who had demonized it.”
The author was one of those Children, the child, in fact, of one of the earlier Children. Later in life, when her commander was introduced to her mother, he said:
“ ‘You look far too young to have so many children. What were you, fourteen?’
My mother, an expert in cult Uncles, the woman I had always seen as shy, looked my commander straight in the eye and said with her chin high and a confident, unwavering voice, ‘Yes, I was. That was Daniella.’”
Like many readers, I was expecting a memoir mostly about life in the cult, what it meant to be born into it, what the day-to-day routines were, what the relationships were like. I knew she joined the army after escaping but didn’t realise that most of the book is about her time there.
To be fair, it is Daniella’s memoir, not a history of the cult in which she spent ‘only’ the first 15 years of her life, formative though they were. She is under no obligation to limit her story to the part that is hidden from outsiders, just because we’re curious. In her case, the cult prepared her for life in the army as one of the rare women in combat.
Resilient doesn’t begin to describe her. She grows up small, tough, competitive, fleet-footed and quick-witted. If she can’t do something better than everyone else, she keeps working at it until she can. Of course we hear about the Uncles and abuse of women and children. We are told the children perform and beg on the streets in public, but I didn’t get much of a sense of what it was like, other than she learned to ‘perform’ as necessary, a skill that was useful as an adult.
When the leader, Berg, died, the cult modified some rules (no more babies at 14), but after living in other countries all her life, Daniella escaped to Texas where her mother and some sisters joined her, aced her way through high school and college, and found another cult, the US Army.
Most of the book is about her time in the Army and how she tries to maintain some sense of stability. She’s a runner, one of the fastest the Army has seen, so she runs, but she has to choose her times and places carefully. Her friend John is also fast and often runs with her.
She also likes salsa dancing as a release, but she is warned by a captain.
“ ‘Daniella, I know you’re new, but you need to be very careful. People are already talking about you and he guys you hang out with. Be careful with John.’
This topic exasperated me. Maybe it was the familiar salsa beat echoing in the restaurant, but I had just enough stamina to attempt to navigate it.
‘Sir, I appreciate the concern, but who should I hang out with, honestly?’ I gestured to Tiffany.”
The only other females are on different shifts in different places. She asks should she just sit in her room for a whole year, to ‘be respected’? Tiffany asks the same. The captain replies.
“ ‘I mean, I get it. It’s hard for you ladies… you know, before I got over here, I used to think that the women who said they were scared were just being dramatic. But the more I get used to what it’s like over here, the more I think that you probably WILL get raped on this deployment.’
For a moment, I thought maybe I had misheard him. But he barreled on, completely unaware of my shock or the stunned look on Tiffany’s face.”
That conversation echoes in her mind often after that. She knows she needs structure in her life, the kind of structure a military life provides, where someone else decides what is your responsibility and what isn’t .
She has developed survival instincts as a cult child that continue to serve her well in the army – tune out, separate your mind from your body so you’re not really ‘here’ when the Uncles are beating you – or worse. In the Army, it’s not the Uncles.
She was raised in several countries, speaking different languages, and she now has a formal education about the real world outside the cult. She is both fearless and fearful, a powerful combination. Even if she has little to lose, she’s absolutely determined not to lose it.
Her story is unique, going from a religious (so-called) cult into the army. I can only admire her tenacity. It isn’t a page-turner, and I didn’t learn anything new about cults or army life, but I’m sure this will be an eye-opener for a lot of readers.
Thanks to Allen and Unwin for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
November 18, 2023
Memoirs are hard to rate. I am giving this five stars for the simple fact I have the utmost respect for this author and what she survived. I did not five star enjoy reading it.
Young dives right into her journey with these first words.
First rule of cults is you are never in a cult.
Young was born into the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family (or The Family of Love & Teens for God). This group originated in California in 1968, started by the evangelical preacher, David Berg.
*This is the same group that actors Joaquin, River Phoenix, and Rose McGowan grew up in.
Young’s voice was refreshingly genuine. I didn’t mind that the story wasn’t completely focused on her childhood, but also her time spent in the American military, which she also equates with cultish behaviors.
Both required me to give up more of myself than they ever gave me. How both indoctrinated their members to think and behave according to an unquestionable set of values, in isolation from the wider world.
She also touches on her research and what she calls “cult-think” that permeates modern culture.
I see traces of the Children of God, with all its inherent cult-think and harmful behavior, in almost every group, organization, or team I have ever joined or studied. And I’m always asking myself: where does a cult end and a culture begin? What is the difference between a good organization and a bad cult?
This book made me question human behaviors. What makes YOU right and THEM wrong? Human decency? Good morals? What do those even mean, and who sets the bar?
While I think this book is very important, it is also filled with very graphic, physical and sexual abuse of children. Be careful of your heart while reading this one.
It’s important to remember that this is still an active religious cult, in over 80 countries.
Young dives right into her journey with these first words.
First rule of cults is you are never in a cult.
Young was born into the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family (or The Family of Love & Teens for God). This group originated in California in 1968, started by the evangelical preacher, David Berg.
*This is the same group that actors Joaquin, River Phoenix, and Rose McGowan grew up in.
Young’s voice was refreshingly genuine. I didn’t mind that the story wasn’t completely focused on her childhood, but also her time spent in the American military, which she also equates with cultish behaviors.
Both required me to give up more of myself than they ever gave me. How both indoctrinated their members to think and behave according to an unquestionable set of values, in isolation from the wider world.
She also touches on her research and what she calls “cult-think” that permeates modern culture.
I see traces of the Children of God, with all its inherent cult-think and harmful behavior, in almost every group, organization, or team I have ever joined or studied. And I’m always asking myself: where does a cult end and a culture begin? What is the difference between a good organization and a bad cult?
This book made me question human behaviors. What makes YOU right and THEM wrong? Human decency? Good morals? What do those even mean, and who sets the bar?
While I think this book is very important, it is also filled with very graphic, physical and sexual abuse of children. Be careful of your heart while reading this one.
It’s important to remember that this is still an active religious cult, in over 80 countries.
December 27, 2022
Just….No. A bait & switch memoir if ever there was one. The first 1/3 of the book focuses on the author’s birth & early years spent in a typical cult; I can call it typical because the author does NOTHING to dissuade me from this view. There is no background given on the development of the cult, or why it operates outside the boundaries of the US. A deeper dive into the lives of her parents, the cult leader, and how the whole nightmare of a “religiously-led life” emerged from the collision would’ve made the machinations of the cult clearer, and would’ve given the reader a reference point for sorting out the events taking place throughout the book’s first section.
The author then goes off to conquer academia, reporting on her innate brilliance, her fascination with learning, her mastery of subjects struggled with by her peers. Citing her need to excel and be noticed as holdovers from her life in the cult (but really, she doesn’t really mention wanting to be extraordinary, just wanting to avoid punishment), she decides to take on the US army and dominate the field of the military. Most of the book focuses on this aspect of her life.
The military is a harsh place, she finds out, a place where the individual is stripped away and participants turn from independent free-thinking citizens to forged military units. For someone so advanced in the study of psychology, history, literature, I find it difficult to believe she did not figure this out before signing up for a hitch. IT’S HOW AN ARMY OPERATES. There’s a chain of command, and success is dependent on the group to follow orders. THIS IS MILITARY HISTORY 101.
But here the author departs from wanting to merely develop skills and serve her country—-she wants to be accepted as an equal of her male counterparts and receive all privileges due her because of—-what? If she’s not promoted, it’s because she’s a woman. If she’s harassed, it’s because she’s a woman. But keep in mind—she’s sleeping with contractors and superior officers on the regular, something I don’t believe her fellow MALE soldiers were doing. She’s participating in “conduct confusing to what her goals are,” and can’t figure out why the immediate brass treats her poorly, hitting on her and treating her like a pet.
Ultimately, it’s her commitment to providing a “safe space” for a female private under her command that proves her undoing—maybe she learns that men aren’t the only assholes on the planet?—and gets her into all kinds of hot water, resulting in a loss of weight off her already “100 lb frame,” that, by my calculations, put a soldier on active duty at 70 pounds (she claims she lost 30 lbs in a few months.) When she suffers from blinding migraines and has a Pituitary tumor diagnosed, I was seriously expecting her to perform the surgery herself (lucky, a thorough MRI revealed no tumor, but we never really find out what the issue was.) She ends up being semi-punished by the military, and runs off into semi-private life with a Warrant Officer she’d met near the end of her hitch. And the running—-we never stop hearing about how fast she is, outrunning all the men in every unit she joins, being asked to run in exclusive clubs, winning a war-zone version of the Boston Marathon, staged on the same day as the official race in America.
I kept waiting for the “now I have found a wonderful therapist who is helping me get my life back,” but aside from a few psych docs at Walter Reed, she’s been doing her own therapy. It involves a lot of running. And writing—this book was supposed to be a cathartic event for her. I think she needs a MUCH better editor, and a great therapist if she doesn’t already have one. Then maybe she can tackle that book on sexism in the military based on data and meticulous research, instead of relying on her own “I’m always the victim” experiences.
And no—Uncultured should NOT be mentioned in the same breath as The Glass Castle.
*Edited: Just found out there was a “ghostwriter” for this oddly-organized trainwreck. Now it’s DEFINITELY a “Don’t Bother.”
The author then goes off to conquer academia, reporting on her innate brilliance, her fascination with learning, her mastery of subjects struggled with by her peers. Citing her need to excel and be noticed as holdovers from her life in the cult (but really, she doesn’t really mention wanting to be extraordinary, just wanting to avoid punishment), she decides to take on the US army and dominate the field of the military. Most of the book focuses on this aspect of her life.
The military is a harsh place, she finds out, a place where the individual is stripped away and participants turn from independent free-thinking citizens to forged military units. For someone so advanced in the study of psychology, history, literature, I find it difficult to believe she did not figure this out before signing up for a hitch. IT’S HOW AN ARMY OPERATES. There’s a chain of command, and success is dependent on the group to follow orders. THIS IS MILITARY HISTORY 101.
But here the author departs from wanting to merely develop skills and serve her country—-she wants to be accepted as an equal of her male counterparts and receive all privileges due her because of—-what? If she’s not promoted, it’s because she’s a woman. If she’s harassed, it’s because she’s a woman. But keep in mind—she’s sleeping with contractors and superior officers on the regular, something I don’t believe her fellow MALE soldiers were doing. She’s participating in “conduct confusing to what her goals are,” and can’t figure out why the immediate brass treats her poorly, hitting on her and treating her like a pet.
Ultimately, it’s her commitment to providing a “safe space” for a female private under her command that proves her undoing—maybe she learns that men aren’t the only assholes on the planet?—and gets her into all kinds of hot water, resulting in a loss of weight off her already “100 lb frame,” that, by my calculations, put a soldier on active duty at 70 pounds (she claims she lost 30 lbs in a few months.) When she suffers from blinding migraines and has a Pituitary tumor diagnosed, I was seriously expecting her to perform the surgery herself (lucky, a thorough MRI revealed no tumor, but we never really find out what the issue was.) She ends up being semi-punished by the military, and runs off into semi-private life with a Warrant Officer she’d met near the end of her hitch. And the running—-we never stop hearing about how fast she is, outrunning all the men in every unit she joins, being asked to run in exclusive clubs, winning a war-zone version of the Boston Marathon, staged on the same day as the official race in America.
I kept waiting for the “now I have found a wonderful therapist who is helping me get my life back,” but aside from a few psych docs at Walter Reed, she’s been doing her own therapy. It involves a lot of running. And writing—this book was supposed to be a cathartic event for her. I think she needs a MUCH better editor, and a great therapist if she doesn’t already have one. Then maybe she can tackle that book on sexism in the military based on data and meticulous research, instead of relying on her own “I’m always the victim” experiences.
And no—Uncultured should NOT be mentioned in the same breath as The Glass Castle.
*Edited: Just found out there was a “ghostwriter” for this oddly-organized trainwreck. Now it’s DEFINITELY a “Don’t Bother.”
February 21, 2024
This is tough to review. I'm of course fascinated by cults. I read Lauren Hough's book this summer and I enjoyed reading it a lot. I was wondering why she doesn't go into much detail about the actual child abuse. Then I got this ARC and was excited to read it. But instead I finally understand now why I think Hough didn't go into the gory details. It is a lot to get through and I don't see why anyone would enjoy reading it. It's sort of like reading pornography and you just feel icky. Then I saw that this one had a ghost writer and I'm more confused than ever before. I would have thought a ghost writer might have made it more readable. But I think the problem isn't that it's too much information for one book but it's that it's missing the soul of the author too. Which I guess makes sense if there's a ghostwriter writing it. I saw this in interviews when she said there were 3 authors. When you read the Glass Castle or Educated or Leaving Isn't the Hardest thing, there is soul to it that you relate to. Young seems to be trying to be as hard to relate to as she possibly can. I won't give it one star. I think we could be friends. I won't do that to a debut author. But I can not find myself recommending this book.
April 10, 2023
This was a very thorough memoir from a survivor of so very much. It also touches on how easy it is to fall into another cult after leaving the one you grew up in.
The book talks about the author joining the military (another cult) after fleeing the cult she grew up in. This was around the time of the “war on terror” so there are some pretty vile details involving racism and sexual assault within the military. Just wanted to give a heads up about this.
At one point she describes someone who was bullying her by their hair style which is obviously not a white hairstyle which I found rude af and disrespectful. Wanted to notate that because it felt really unneeded. There were a few tiny reasons that rubbed me a weird way and I couldn’t give a full 5 stars to.
Also a PLETHORA of child SA so please take care of yourself as needed. You will effing HATE the word “uncle” by the end of this book and those who belong to its title 🐽
The author writes wonderfully and stays an adult through the entire writing process which I enjoyed since a lot of authors tend to write as the age they are recording from their lives often which is not my cup of tea.
A story worth telling and hearing.
The book talks about the author joining the military (another cult) after fleeing the cult she grew up in. This was around the time of the “war on terror” so there are some pretty vile details involving racism and sexual assault within the military. Just wanted to give a heads up about this.
At one point she describes someone who was bullying her by their hair style which is obviously not a white hairstyle which I found rude af and disrespectful. Wanted to notate that because it felt really unneeded. There were a few tiny reasons that rubbed me a weird way and I couldn’t give a full 5 stars to.
Also a PLETHORA of child SA so please take care of yourself as needed. You will effing HATE the word “uncle” by the end of this book and those who belong to its title 🐽
The author writes wonderfully and stays an adult through the entire writing process which I enjoyed since a lot of authors tend to write as the age they are recording from their lives often which is not my cup of tea.
A story worth telling and hearing.
October 13, 2022
Eh… this book was okay. Some of it was pretty interesting and compelling but it kinda runs out of steam the last fifty pages. Feels a lot like a couple other books I’ve read by former cult/religious escapees.
A lot of her story is profoundly disturbing… and the comparison she makes between cult life and the military is interesting (and makes sense)… but on the whole I found the book to be a little ponderous. Not terribly written, but… could have maybe used a better editor. About half the book is about her military career which, frankly, I didn’t find that interesting… but maybe some people will.
Not sure I’d recommend this to anyone.
A lot of her story is profoundly disturbing… and the comparison she makes between cult life and the military is interesting (and makes sense)… but on the whole I found the book to be a little ponderous. Not terribly written, but… could have maybe used a better editor. About half the book is about her military career which, frankly, I didn’t find that interesting… but maybe some people will.
Not sure I’d recommend this to anyone.
September 11, 2022
Reads like a corporate white paper on cults. No narrative arc and very surface level interiority. Seems to be playing up abuse for shock value. There are better written books on this particular cult.
November 27, 2022
3.5 stars. Although the sections about Daniella's early life in the religious cult, The Children of God, is deeply upsetting, I already knew what happened in these sects so wasn't surprised by the evil behavior shown by religious extremist. The fact that mothers and fathers could allow their children to be abused for years is unfathomable though.
I was deeply shocked by the parallels she draws between the dogmatic indoctrination she encountered in both the cult and the US army. I never even realized that female soldiers had to deal with an environment of casual and deeply rooted sexism and rape culture, even while fighting a war. I did think this section could have done with some editing, as parts of it felt very repetitive.
An interesting memoir which asks the question: where does a cult end and a culture begin?
I was deeply shocked by the parallels she draws between the dogmatic indoctrination she encountered in both the cult and the US army. I never even realized that female soldiers had to deal with an environment of casual and deeply rooted sexism and rape culture, even while fighting a war. I did think this section could have done with some editing, as parts of it felt very repetitive.
An interesting memoir which asks the question: where does a cult end and a culture begin?
September 26, 2022
I couldn't finish this one. It's just endless retelling of awful shocking things to sandbag people reading it. I'm not squeamish. But the details are gratuitous if there's nothing said about them. And once you're done with reading the child rape scenes, it's mostly about the military and there the writer comes off as extremely homophobic and xenophobic. I'm shocked an editor didn't cut some of the slurs. But they seem to be included for shock value too. I'm sorry for the author's experiences. But Not Without My Sister and Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing are much better written books on this cult.
September 20, 2022
HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY!
TW: sexual abuse, abuse, toxic parent relationship, rape, language, racism, sexism, rape, cancer, cheating
*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong. But she soon learns that her new world—surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan—looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Release Date: September 20th, 2022
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 352
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ (I enjoyed the beginning)
What I Liked:
1. Talking about being in a cult
2. How she ties in that the Army is a cult
What I Didn't Like:
1. Why no photos in the book??
2. She's one of those "I have to prove myself" kind of women
3. Hit over your head how sexist the army is
Overall Thoughts:
I wish there were photos in the book. This book really needed them. The author describes things to us but it lacked having that to compare with. There is something about a book that includes photos that almost ties in the book and gives you the idea of what the person lived through. I had to search on Google for photos. Whenever I read a memoir without photos it reminds me of a cookbook without photos.
I would have loved to know how they came to USA. The author skims over how they just showed up in the starts and got social security cards, medical, and into school. I would have liked to know how that all works when her mom hasn't lived in the states since she was 2 years old. I would have loved to hear a little how the mother got into the cult too.
Look I am a woman too but I don't care to hear 1,000 times how much a woman has to feel like she has to prove herself to a man. It gets very annoying and I tend to roll my eyes at women that feel that way. The author makes it a point to beat you over the head that women are just as equal to men in running and combat, but it's just not true. Women are slower (check out the fastest woman compared to a man). To me that’s okay. Why do we as women feel like we have to prove ourselves and try to do what men do? Let’s just accept that we are women and maybe do things differently. I mean when it comes to handling pain as women we definitely can do that better than men can.
Then Daniella tells us that she is sleeping with her lieutenant that is married and could break her career. How am I supposed to feel about her? She complains about being equal and then does the thing that everyone said she would do. Even proving the army wives right when they called out the service women for sleeping with their husbands. You can't complain like a victim when you CHOOSE to sleep with a person that could "break your career". You are not the victim here.
I thought that the part of the army was going to be more compared to how it was a cult with the demands that are similar to her Family, but the chapter felt more about how women are raped and very in your face about how unfair women have it compared to men. I can see how some parts are how she felt (helplessness and women being lower class) in the cult but felt like a bait and switch.
The book has a ghost writer which definitely makes the words come across as hollow and very matter of fact. Details are changed. Not sure if that's locations or just people. It all just felt so surface level. Can you call yourself a writer if someone else wrote your book and you just submitted words to someone else?
I think one of the most fascinating things about cults and when families are raised in it is just how normal it is to let your 5 year old child be sexually abused by a 20-60 year old man because you've been brainwashed that it's for God. It's just so normalized, which I know is the point. Also the fact that you could still love/forgive your parents when you are out of the cult and get over that they allowed the abuse to happen. It's like cults teach people differently how to forgive. I've seen adults today and their parents have done way way less and they need therapy and can never get over it.
Final Thoughts:
I'd say this was just fine. I thought the twist of the army would set apart this from other books but all it did was annoy me. The constant comparisons between men and women to the fact that she felt self-righteous in everything she did. She acted like a victim so much in the army but she was doing the things that she complained about that people said she was doing. Men are sluts when they sleep around and no one is stopping you from calling them that, but you can't act all high and mighty when you're doing it too and say you aren't one also. I mean I don't care sleep who ever you want but don't act like you are better than everyone else.
Recommend For:
• People who enjoy cults
• Army stories
• Stories of struggles
• Strong women
IG | Blog
Thanks to Saint Martin press for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Arc received thanks to St. Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy. Can't wait to jump into this one next week.
TW: sexual abuse, abuse, toxic parent relationship, rape, language, racism, sexism, rape, cancer, cheating
*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong. But she soon learns that her new world—surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan—looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
Release Date: September 20th, 2022
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 352
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ (I enjoyed the beginning)
What I Liked:
1. Talking about being in a cult
2. How she ties in that the Army is a cult
What I Didn't Like:
1. Why no photos in the book??
2. She's one of those "I have to prove myself" kind of women
3. Hit over your head how sexist the army is
Overall Thoughts:
I wish there were photos in the book. This book really needed them. The author describes things to us but it lacked having that to compare with. There is something about a book that includes photos that almost ties in the book and gives you the idea of what the person lived through. I had to search on Google for photos. Whenever I read a memoir without photos it reminds me of a cookbook without photos.
I would have loved to know how they came to USA. The author skims over how they just showed up in the starts and got social security cards, medical, and into school. I would have liked to know how that all works when her mom hasn't lived in the states since she was 2 years old. I would have loved to hear a little how the mother got into the cult too.
Look I am a woman too but I don't care to hear 1,000 times how much a woman has to feel like she has to prove herself to a man. It gets very annoying and I tend to roll my eyes at women that feel that way. The author makes it a point to beat you over the head that women are just as equal to men in running and combat, but it's just not true. Women are slower (check out the fastest woman compared to a man). To me that’s okay. Why do we as women feel like we have to prove ourselves and try to do what men do? Let’s just accept that we are women and maybe do things differently. I mean when it comes to handling pain as women we definitely can do that better than men can.
Then Daniella tells us that she is sleeping with her lieutenant that is married and could break her career. How am I supposed to feel about her? She complains about being equal and then does the thing that everyone said she would do. Even proving the army wives right when they called out the service women for sleeping with their husbands. You can't complain like a victim when you CHOOSE to sleep with a person that could "break your career". You are not the victim here.
I thought that the part of the army was going to be more compared to how it was a cult with the demands that are similar to her Family, but the chapter felt more about how women are raped and very in your face about how unfair women have it compared to men. I can see how some parts are how she felt (helplessness and women being lower class) in the cult but felt like a bait and switch.
The book has a ghost writer which definitely makes the words come across as hollow and very matter of fact. Details are changed. Not sure if that's locations or just people. It all just felt so surface level. Can you call yourself a writer if someone else wrote your book and you just submitted words to someone else?
I think one of the most fascinating things about cults and when families are raised in it is just how normal it is to let your 5 year old child be sexually abused by a 20-60 year old man because you've been brainwashed that it's for God. It's just so normalized, which I know is the point. Also the fact that you could still love/forgive your parents when you are out of the cult and get over that they allowed the abuse to happen. It's like cults teach people differently how to forgive. I've seen adults today and their parents have done way way less and they need therapy and can never get over it.
Final Thoughts:
I'd say this was just fine. I thought the twist of the army would set apart this from other books but all it did was annoy me. The constant comparisons between men and women to the fact that she felt self-righteous in everything she did. She acted like a victim so much in the army but she was doing the things that she complained about that people said she was doing. Men are sluts when they sleep around and no one is stopping you from calling them that, but you can't act all high and mighty when you're doing it too and say you aren't one also. I mean I don't care sleep who ever you want but don't act like you are better than everyone else.
Recommend For:
• People who enjoy cults
• Army stories
• Stories of struggles
• Strong women
IG | Blog
Thanks to Saint Martin press for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Arc received thanks to St. Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy. Can't wait to jump into this one next week.
March 15, 2023
This book was really disappointing. As a former Army Intelligence Officer and person who has deconstructed much of the harm the church has caused me as a lesbian, I really hoped this book would provide insights or at least resonate with me. I discovered this author from Tik Tok and her videos made it seem that this book would provide more depth into why the Army is like a cult.
I truly feel bad for what this author endured, particularly when it comes to the SA from her childhood. Overall I am left unsure what this book is actually about. Worse, she comes off as homophobic and the stories she choose to tell are not in any coherent theme. I really wondered if her experience mirrored my own and not much about it did. If we served together I would no doubt have been afraid to be an enlisted person under her leadership- especially as a gay woman. If anything this book emphasizes the rampant homophobia that still exists in our military.
I truly feel bad for what this author endured, particularly when it comes to the SA from her childhood. Overall I am left unsure what this book is actually about. Worse, she comes off as homophobic and the stories she choose to tell are not in any coherent theme. I really wondered if her experience mirrored my own and not much about it did. If we served together I would no doubt have been afraid to be an enlisted person under her leadership- especially as a gay woman. If anything this book emphasizes the rampant homophobia that still exists in our military.
November 11, 2022
It’s hard to rate someone’s personal story. The author for sure suffered as a child as part of a cult she was born into. My reason for the lower rating was how the two parts seemed like completely different books. I was definitely more invested in her childhood and how she grew up than her life in the Army. Had I known that was part of it going in, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. Just slogged in spots. An interesting first half for sure.
November 11, 2022
An interesting and well-written memoir, this is in part about the author’s experiences growing up in a cult that practiced all kinds of child abuse, and in part about her experiences of trying to fit into the mainstream world, and as a woman in the U.S. military. I picked it up thinking it was mostly about the cult, but actually wound up appreciating the military part more, probably because—this being something the author chose for herself, as an adult—it feels more balanced and nuanced. From a bit of online research about the Children of God (aka The Family International), the author’s portrayal actually seems restrained, but it nevertheless teeters on the edge of abuse porn. Obviously some things are just flat-out awful, and institutionalized physical and sexual abuse of children is one of them; it’s hard to imagine how to tell this story meaningfully without feeling a bit like chasing shock value.
So Daniella Mestyanek was born a third-generation member of a particularly nasty cult, which was formed in the 1960s with ideas about sexual liberation, which turned into required “sexual sharing” by adult members and routine sexual abuse of children. The cult maintains communes around the world, often moving members around and even splitting up families; children do not attend school and daily activities involve begging for money to support largely fictional “missionary work.” Mestyanek grew up mostly in Brazil, and managed to leave the group in her teens, at which point she moved in with a stepsister in Texas and worked her way through high school and college.
Unsure what to do next, Mestyanek joined the army and became a military intelligence officer, where she found unexpected similarities with the cult world she had left behind (hierarchical demands for obedience, us vs. them mentality, a tendency to close ranks and cover up wrongdoing). During her military career (from 2009 to 2014 and including two deployments to Afghanistan) she struggled with the routine sexual harassment and assault of servicemembers. She also writes about the various ways the military failed to take women’s talents or experiences into account, from the combat ban (she joined one of the first Female Engagement Teams, which led to the ultimate raising of the ban) to rules prohibiting deployed servicemembers from having sex—which led to suspicion anytime women so much as hung out with the men who were the vast majority of their colleagues. Mestyanek also hadn’t yet dealt with her trauma, leaving her mental health precarious.
But the storytelling here is strong, and I found the book quite compelling, and more so as it went on. It’s not what I’d call a literary memoir—by which I mean, the sort of book where the author examines her own perspective along with other sources of information and perhaps arrives at a new understanding of events—but once I saw it was at least partly ghostwritten I didn’t expect that, and it is at least well-written. It conveys the author’s inner experiences very well, such that it’s easy to sympathize with her struggles. I’m not sure it really examines the dynamics of group behavior in the way the author seems to think, but so what? I don’t understand the idea that a memoir is supposed to be somehow specially “relevant” to its readers’ lives; we’re storytelling creatures and this is the story of another human, what more relevance do I need? (Of course not all stories are equally interesting to me, but I select my books based on my own interests, and generally find attempts to give memoirs a self-help spin insipid.)
Because other readers have complained about it, I’ll note that Mestyanek doesn’t come across as particularly opposed to the U.S.’s overseas wars (though she does voice concerns about the us vs. them mentality involved), but that’s unsurprising from someone who volunteered. While reading I wished for more details about her job, actually—it seemed weirdly absent until I remembered that she was in military intelligence and this book had to be cleared by the Department of Defense, of course she couldn’t talk about it.
At any rate, this is a fascinating story and I am glad to have read it. If you’re interested in the behavior of cults and the process of deconstructing from them, I also recommend Unfollow—depending on your interests, probably before this one.
So Daniella Mestyanek was born a third-generation member of a particularly nasty cult, which was formed in the 1960s with ideas about sexual liberation, which turned into required “sexual sharing” by adult members and routine sexual abuse of children. The cult maintains communes around the world, often moving members around and even splitting up families; children do not attend school and daily activities involve begging for money to support largely fictional “missionary work.” Mestyanek grew up mostly in Brazil, and managed to leave the group in her teens, at which point she moved in with a stepsister in Texas and worked her way through high school and college.
Unsure what to do next, Mestyanek joined the army and became a military intelligence officer, where she found unexpected similarities with the cult world she had left behind (hierarchical demands for obedience, us vs. them mentality, a tendency to close ranks and cover up wrongdoing). During her military career (from 2009 to 2014 and including two deployments to Afghanistan) she struggled with the routine sexual harassment and assault of servicemembers. She also writes about the various ways the military failed to take women’s talents or experiences into account, from the combat ban (she joined one of the first Female Engagement Teams, which led to the ultimate raising of the ban) to rules prohibiting deployed servicemembers from having sex—which led to suspicion anytime women so much as hung out with the men who were the vast majority of their colleagues. Mestyanek also hadn’t yet dealt with her trauma, leaving her mental health precarious.
But the storytelling here is strong, and I found the book quite compelling, and more so as it went on. It’s not what I’d call a literary memoir—by which I mean, the sort of book where the author examines her own perspective along with other sources of information and perhaps arrives at a new understanding of events—but once I saw it was at least partly ghostwritten I didn’t expect that, and it is at least well-written. It conveys the author’s inner experiences very well, such that it’s easy to sympathize with her struggles. I’m not sure it really examines the dynamics of group behavior in the way the author seems to think, but so what? I don’t understand the idea that a memoir is supposed to be somehow specially “relevant” to its readers’ lives; we’re storytelling creatures and this is the story of another human, what more relevance do I need? (Of course not all stories are equally interesting to me, but I select my books based on my own interests, and generally find attempts to give memoirs a self-help spin insipid.)
Because other readers have complained about it, I’ll note that Mestyanek doesn’t come across as particularly opposed to the U.S.’s overseas wars (though she does voice concerns about the us vs. them mentality involved), but that’s unsurprising from someone who volunteered. While reading I wished for more details about her job, actually—it seemed weirdly absent until I remembered that she was in military intelligence and this book had to be cleared by the Department of Defense, of course she couldn’t talk about it.
At any rate, this is a fascinating story and I am glad to have read it. If you’re interested in the behavior of cults and the process of deconstructing from them, I also recommend Unfollow—depending on your interests, probably before this one.
February 26, 2024
I wanted so much to like this. It just felt flat. I'm sorry to say this one, when you read it, it sort of feels like a bland copy of the other cult memoir that came out a few years ago by Lauren Hough. I understand this one had a ghostwriter which I guess is what makes the writing so flat. ((Can book publishers stop lying about this?? If I spend the money on the book, I want to read a book by the person they say wrote it. So annoying!!)) This book is like one of those corporate bands they come up with after a few garage bands have some hits. So someone at a record company says just throw some musicians together and give them the right haircuts. So they dress them up right but the music is just flat? That's what this book is. They read the Hough book and were like okay that was a massive hit. So do we know who else was in the cult? So they found this person. So then they used a bunch of key words and jumbled them up then they added some really brutal rape and abuse scenes. They said the word rape as much as they could. Then they just hope no one was going to notice that the writing is boring. I'm so f-ing tired of publishers doing this. I don't even so much think it's the author's fault.
May 11, 2022
Born third generation into a cult, Daniella Mestyanek Young’s entire existence was controlled. Through geographical, physical, emotional and sexual domination, the leaders of the Children of God kept her in line. In Uncultured, a well-paced memoir, the author brings us inside the glass-topped walls of the compounds where she lived and where her mother bore child after child, some of whom Daniella didn’t know were her siblings, and where families were torn apart to serve the erratic rules of the cult. Denied books and any cultural references aside from what the cult chose for her, the young Daniella’s curiosity and innate inquisitiveness pushed her into territory where she would either flounder or flourish. Excommunicated in her mid-teens and sent to live with a sibling she’d never met, she enrolled in high school in Texas, her first public school experience. Crappy job, no support system, no idea how to survive in The System outside the cult, Daniella made mistakes and had victories. After university, she essentially joined another cult: the US Army. Rampant sexism, behavioral expectations that put all the onus on women, and the ever-present threat of rape permeated every day. Don’t get raped. That’s a life mantra you wouldn’t want wish on anyone.
The best memoirs answer the question: So what? Even in retelling a horrendous childhood and war experiences, we still wonder, so what? Mestyanek Young doesn’t leave us hanging. Through introspection and unflinching honesty, she finds the thread that runs through her life and gives her readers an understanding of how groups control their members and how we can identify that if we know what to look for. It’s no great leap to go from reading this book to examining the groups we belong to and others we see represented by political parties, churches and schools.
In a period where cult memoirs could have a bookshelf in every bookshop, Uncultured stands out for its honesty and implications for what the world can produce, both terrible and terribly good.
The best memoirs answer the question: So what? Even in retelling a horrendous childhood and war experiences, we still wonder, so what? Mestyanek Young doesn’t leave us hanging. Through introspection and unflinching honesty, she finds the thread that runs through her life and gives her readers an understanding of how groups control their members and how we can identify that if we know what to look for. It’s no great leap to go from reading this book to examining the groups we belong to and others we see represented by political parties, churches and schools.
In a period where cult memoirs could have a bookshelf in every bookshop, Uncultured stands out for its honesty and implications for what the world can produce, both terrible and terribly good.
August 15, 2022
I won Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young in a Goodreads giveaway and put it on the top of my "to read" pile and I'm so happy I did. I read it in two days and I've given it a rare five-star rating. It is the memoir of Daniella's heartbreaking childhood in a "religious" cult that is more like a sex cult. When the cult is living in Mexico and she is 15 or 16 she rebels and leaves the cult to live in Houston. Though she didn't exist in the eyes of the system, she manages to enroll in school and then graduate from college as valedictorian. When she enlists in the military she discovers that in many respects it is very similar to a cult. While Daniella was stationed in Afghanistan she developed symptoms that indicated she had a brain tumor, but her amazing life goes on! After I finished the memoir I found a wonderful article at medium.com that she wrote on parenting.
September 17, 2022
I have to admit that I struggled with this book. Not only is the content is hard and harsh, the writing is not the best. This is a true story of the author growing up in a cult and the abuse that she and other girls endured and her eventual escape. She ended up joining the military which she compared to the cult of her childhood years. I have read other books along these lines like Educated, that I really liked. This one does not compare. I do applaud the author for fleeing her childhood trama.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.
Read
March 7, 2023Daniella’s early life prepared her for a life of humility and hardship and service. But her fierce spirit opened doors for her that defied all logic.
A fantastic read. I enjoyed every moment and am looking forward to book 2!!
A fantastic read. I enjoyed every moment and am looking forward to book 2!!
December 17, 2021
Uncultured is currently my favorite memoir, I'm honored to have had the opportunity for an advanced reading. In my opinion, it blows Educated out of the water and deserves a spot next to all the greats, like Glass Castle, Liar's Club and Somebody's Daughter. The writing in this fast paced, page turner is hauntingly beautiful, searingly honest and deeply affecting. Once you start Uncultured, you will be unable to put it down. Daniella was born a third-generation member of the Children of God, Uncultured is her poignant and timely story about leaving the cult and seeing the same code of behavior and structures repeat themselves when she joins the Army. This is not a cult or Army book though, it’s Daniella’s journey to find herself and her place in the world as she questions the cult mindset and power structures that surround her. Despite numerous setbacks, she manages to survive and then thrive despite all odds. Daniella’s vivid descriptions enable readers to envision far flung lands, like Brazil and Afghanistan (which I’ve never been to) and to see the United States through the eyes of a young teenager visiting for the first time. Daniella is fearless and unapologetic in communicating her truth and her acceptance of imperfection as part of life which has made her who she is. Her voice is raw, her emotions palpable and intense, yet she writes about the multi-dimensional characters in her life with remarkable grace and empathy despite how their poor decisions impacted her life. Daniella demonstrates wisdom and insight beyond her years. Buckle up, this book is intense, at times you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe, but it’s oh, so good!
Merged review:
Uncultured is currently my favorite memoir, I'm honored to have had the opportunity for an advanced reading. In my opinion, it blows Educated out of the water and deserves a spot next to all the greats, like Glass Castle, Liar's Club and Somebody's Daughter. The writing in this fast paced, page turner is hauntingly beautiful, searingly honest and deeply affecting. Once you start Uncultured, you will be unable to put it down. Daniella was born a third-generation member of the Children of God, Uncultured is her poignant and timely story about leaving the cult and seeing the same code of behavior and structures repeat themselves when she joins the Army. This is not a cult or Army book though, it’s Daniella’s journey to find herself and her place in the world as she questions the cult mindset and power structures that surround her. Despite numerous setbacks, she manages to survive and then thrive despite all odds. Daniella’s vivid descriptions enable readers to envision far flung lands, like Brazil and Afghanistan (which I’ve never been to) and to see the United States through the eyes of a young teenager visiting for the first time. Daniella is fearless and unapologetic in communicating her truth and her acceptance of imperfection as part of life which has made her who she is. Her voice is raw, her emotions palpable and intense, yet she writes about the multi-dimensional characters in her life with remarkable grace and empathy despite how their poor decisions impacted her life. Daniella demonstrates wisdom and insight beyond her years. Buckle up, this book is intense, at times you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe, but it’s oh, so good!
Merged review:
Uncultured is currently my favorite memoir, I'm honored to have had the opportunity for an advanced reading. In my opinion, it blows Educated out of the water and deserves a spot next to all the greats, like Glass Castle, Liar's Club and Somebody's Daughter. The writing in this fast paced, page turner is hauntingly beautiful, searingly honest and deeply affecting. Once you start Uncultured, you will be unable to put it down. Daniella was born a third-generation member of the Children of God, Uncultured is her poignant and timely story about leaving the cult and seeing the same code of behavior and structures repeat themselves when she joins the Army. This is not a cult or Army book though, it’s Daniella’s journey to find herself and her place in the world as she questions the cult mindset and power structures that surround her. Despite numerous setbacks, she manages to survive and then thrive despite all odds. Daniella’s vivid descriptions enable readers to envision far flung lands, like Brazil and Afghanistan (which I’ve never been to) and to see the United States through the eyes of a young teenager visiting for the first time. Daniella is fearless and unapologetic in communicating her truth and her acceptance of imperfection as part of life which has made her who she is. Her voice is raw, her emotions palpable and intense, yet she writes about the multi-dimensional characters in her life with remarkable grace and empathy despite how their poor decisions impacted her life. Daniella demonstrates wisdom and insight beyond her years. Buckle up, this book is intense, at times you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe, but it’s oh, so good!
September 25, 2022
I did not know much about The Children of God cult, and whoa, it was quite messed up to say the least. Daniella does not hold back in this memoir, it is WILD, sad, and horrifying. Cults are extremely fascinating to me, I understand how one could become a part of a group to be accepted, but when extreme behavior goes on in groups like these, I never cease to understand how so many are able to go along with it and look the other way, especially when children are involved. Daniella’s story is especially incredible, not just that she went through despicable things and got out, but that she in fact went on to serve as a high ranking officer in the military, which she likens to a cult in and of its own, especially when it comes to being a woman serving in Afghanistan.
I listened to this on audio, which is how I prefer to listen to memoirs, and it is so good this way. To hear Daniella read her own story is both compelling and moving, and I love when authors read their own story.
I highly recommend this one, there are obvious trigger warnings and some parts of her story are hard to get through, but I am grateful she is sharing it with us.
Thank you to St Martins Press for the advanced copy to review.
I listened to this on audio, which is how I prefer to listen to memoirs, and it is so good this way. To hear Daniella read her own story is both compelling and moving, and I love when authors read their own story.
I highly recommend this one, there are obvious trigger warnings and some parts of her story are hard to get through, but I am grateful she is sharing it with us.
Thank you to St Martins Press for the advanced copy to review.
September 16, 2022
Could have used a ghostwriter. I'm sorry for this person but not everyone needs to write a book. Having worked to trudge through about half of this one, I'm not sure the author's ever read a book or knows what books are.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,112 reviews