Uncultured

oh hmmm I love a cult memoir of course and I did find her story to be compelling and well-written. I didn't realize it was also a military memoir–which maybe I should have because the opening is a teaser of her in basic training and wondering if she just joined another cult–and I struggled a bit with that element of it. LIKE...it's terrible that the military put her (and other women, and other people) through such terrible training and treatment, and you can see her struggle between being proud of how much abuse she can stand but also like, realizing it's all fucked up. But then there does remain a certain amount of fundamental acceptance of the war in the Middle East that was like... :/

I'd be interested to read another book from her in like 5-10 years to see how her thinking may or may not evolve on that. IDK.

3.9

DNF. Read about 40% of this book before deciding to stop. I'm a big fan of “cult books” and have read tons of them. Perhaps that was what turned me off of this one. All of the stories seem to bleed together in these survivor tales, and they are all written in the same style.

I want more from them. To me, despite it being incredible what these people have survived, I want more than just a retelling of what they went through moment by moment.

I think this was the straw that broke the camels back, and I'll be staying away from survivor stories for a while.