Kyria Abrahams

Kyria's memoir of her upbringing in the Jehovah's Witness church is fascinating, but I found it a little difficult to read. I think she's trying to come off as humorous (the back cover proclaims her a stand-up comic), but a lot of her attempts at humor, particularly her characterization of her bratty brother, come off as mean-spirited instead. I get it, I would be bitter having been raised that way; in fact, I am pretty bitter about my own repressive (Evangelical) childhood, but her condescension towards her family and other church members is sometimes a little much.
It's pretty impressive how this naive young woman, once she finds being married at 19 isn't all it's cracked up to be, engages in increasingly risky behaviors but manages to come out the other side, with quite a bit of help from some very understanding and patient people, relatively unscathed - that is not raped, pregnant, an addict or worse. It's very sad how insular some "churches" have to be in order to keep their parishioners snowed by the ridiculously and obviously non-factual crap they are peddling. Those who manage to make it out, like Kyria, are so unprepared for life in the real world, that often they tuck tail and head back to the church just to have friends or a roof over their heads. Kyria was quite lucky to be rescued and cared for instead of taken advantage of by her liberators; the story could have gone a much darker direction, and probably has for some escapees of this dangerous "faith."
I just wish she hadn't come off as such a brat; I might have enjoyed her story more.… (mais)

Abrahams describes growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, and predictably for a memoir, leaving the organization as a young adult. Her style is witty and funny, while her descriptions of her unhappy family and the effects of religious restrictions combined with undiagnosed OCD on her personality are poignant. I was somewhat disappointed that while Abrahams seems to imply that her childhood reliance on the Jehovah's Witnesses was unhealthy, she is unable or unwilling to critique her own later dependence on alcohol and self-cutting as equally or more destructive and pointless. Despite the often charming wit, the narrator's inability to move far beyond her original adolescent perspective is unintentionally depressing.… (mais)

The first 100 pages or so are the most interesting, in my opinion. They cover her childhood as a Jehovah's Witness.

After that, the memoir is more just about her making really bad decisions involving drugs, alcohol, cutting and getting away with be a drain on society.

She doesn't really appear to go through any growth as a person (at least, not that she conveyed) and the last half of the book felt sloppy, disorganized and had some big gaps in the stories.

The best part of the book is where she's talking about her disdain for a slam poet by the name of "Trevor Bali" who's an English teacher. The real name of this guy is Taylor Mali and I have loved his work since the first time I heard it 6 years ago. ;)… (mais)