Unusually for a 1-star book I couldn't wait to read what happened next. I was sure at some point the author was going to get to the meat of her unusual childhood, but nope, she never did.

The story is basically the author's life at age four to six in a cult of disaffected Amish following a leader who said he had an Orthodox Jewish upbringing. He said a lot of things: he said he was a Nazarite. His idea of being a Nazarite meant each day was a sabbath to him and he could never work, carry anything himself or even help someone who was so injured they might die because it would break his endless sabbath, that other people must do everything for him because of his great holiness. He prefaces all his conversations by saying he speaks in the name of Jesus Christ. Those who accept the divinity of Jesus and follow His path are considered Christians and so I have no faith that this cult leader ever had anything more to do with Judaism than reading the (Old) Testament, if that. The author does point out that there never was any proof of anything he said about his life before he moved in with the Amish.

What is quite amazing is why so many people would give up everything to follow this obvious charlatan whose rules grow ever more onerous - he even designs the most appalling and uncomfortable outfits for the women to wear. He micromanages their lives going as far as to dictate how often and in what order people must walk the paths in the hidden settlement they live in and no one objects to this. But then that was why I was reading the book, to find out what it is that makes otherwise perfectly normal people follow these megalomaniacs for the promise of an afterlife that they, and only they out of the whole world, will enjoy if they only follow endlessly more stupid and life-limiting 'sacred' rules.

This book didn't explain it, but to be fair, I haven't found one that does. Nothing I've read on the FLDS, Jonestown, Waco or the many laughable The End is Nigh groups has ever given any credible explanation for people giving up all their worldly goods and their families to follow a charismatic crackpot leader that the entire rest of the world thinks is completely wrong-headed, not to mention probably criminal.

As far as the writing goes, I had to keep referring to past paragraphs to find out what and to whom the present one referred to. The author jumps from the knowledge of an adult to the naivety and ignorance of her four year-old self in one sentence to the next. It seems to me that the author is quite justifiably obsessed with rage at the lifestyle her parents imposed on her and feels she must express it publicly but she doesn't have good communication skills so it's a difficult and somewhat pointless read. She has written not only this book, but two more covering the rest of her time in the cult. There was nothing in this one that would induce to me to waste time on reading more of these outraged ramblings until the author gets an editor to make them a great deal more coherent, then they might really have something to say. ( )