Title: Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future
Author: Elizabeth Esther
Genre: Memoir/Religion
Trigger Warnings: Child abuse, spiritual abuse, fundamentalist Christianty
Back Cover:
Elizabeth Esther grew up in love with Jesus but in fear of daily spankings (to “break her will”). Trained in her family-run church to confess sins real and imagined, she knew her parents loved her and God probably hated her. Not until she was grown and married did she find the courage to attempt the unthinkable. To leave.
In her memoir, readers will recognize questions every believer faces: When is spiritual zeal a gift, and when is it a trap? What happens when a pastor holds unchecked sway over his followers? And how can we leave behind the harm inflicted in the name of God without losing God in the process?
By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Girl at the End of the World is a story of the lingering effects of spiritual abuse and the growing hope that God can still be good when His people fail.
Review:
This was so … traumatic to read.
I wanted to read this because I’ve also escaped fundamentalist Christianity. I’m not sure what I hoped for out of this book – a little more hope, maybe? – but it definitely wasn’t to viscerally relive all of my religious trauma along with watching Elizabeth experience hers.
Perhaps if I were a little further along in my dealing-with-religious-trauma journey I wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction to it, but I’m not and I did. It was painful, and yet I couldn’t look away because Elizabeth was describing familiar experiences – different names, slightly different situations, but the same feelings. Lots and lots of Trauma Feelings, which I was not particularly prepared for. (Also I read this at work. Mistakes were made.)
Uh, the book itself … it was solid. It had a coherent narrative of Elizabeth growing up indoctrinated, starting to think for herself a little, getting married, and eventually leaving the cult and finding peace with God through Catholicism. It’s interesting and well-done and Elizabeth tells her story well.
I was affected deeply by reading this because of my own background with fundamentalism. The description says “hilarious and heartbreaking,” but I saw none of the hilarious – it was all heartbreaking. It dug up traumas that I don’t think I’m quite ready to deal with yet.
But besides that, yeah. Good book. Definitely worth reading, as long as you’re prepared for it.
Bluejay Reads 