4.5 stars.

This is an incredibly well-written and detailed memoir. Her accomplishments are amazing, but so is her ability to be honest about her own thoughts and actions. This is a heart-breaking portrait of emotional and physical abuse under the guise of spirituality, righteousness, and revelation. Shame is a key component. To hear the story of the family's continuous cycles of destruction is difficult, especially as the parents willingly cause and allow harm to come to their own children against a backdrop of protecting them from evil.

There are moments of repetition in the writing and sometimes things feel a little rushed, but overall it was a highly smooth and compelling read. The narrator (the author) is admittedly unreliable as memories are malleable, but the author directly addresses and admits this--which makes it all feel even more credible and carefully constructed.

There are perhaps readers who doubt the honesty of the memoir, but for me it rings as wholly possible and probable given my own knowledge and personal experience with both the Mormon faith and the zealous offshoots that exist. The militia style attitude is also familiar as I, like the author, grew up in Idaho. These ideas are not new and absolutely do exist in thought and practice in pockets of the state (I'm sure this is true of other areas in the nation as well, but I have not been directly exposed to them). Despite the possibility that there may be some warping of the truth in her recollections, I have zero doubt that the core of her stories and memories are true.