tw: graphic descriptions of child sexual assault and child abuse, religious abuse, financial abuse, racism, fatphobia.

this book is comped with EDUCATED by Tara Westover, and there are absolutely portions that are just as difficult to read as westover's book. but the two differ in writing style -- this is where sex cult nun falls short.

i think the main issue with SCN is that it's written in present tense, mostly from the point of view of a child, and that makes it really hard to achieve any nuance. there are many totally horrifying scenes describing children being sexually assaulted, including jones herself, but because they're written through her eyes at that age, there's no real condemnation or analysis of the abuse and the way it affected her then and now. this extends to other terrible non-sexual scenes, such as ones describing the people they lived with in macau and ones describing fat bodies. the author neither endorses nor decries some really awful stuff and that's tough.

a secondary issue with the tense is that the dialogue is really stilted. there's no way jones remembers all these conversations that are described in the book, and her voice even as a child sounds like an adult's. she's reluctant to blame either of her parents for subjecting her to this unimaginable abuse and white knights for them throughout.

there's no denying that this is a powerful book -- it's certainly not shying away from presenting the abuses jones suffered as a child in this cult. but it's not thinking critically about their long-term effects, either, and that's its ultimate failing.

if you liked this book (or even didn't like it but wanted to), definitely try EDUCATED if you haven't already, or FATHERMOTHERGOD by Lucia Greenhouse.