The Safe Pages Rating
Romance
There were few instances of romance. Several characters get married throughout the book. The main character has several boyfriends and mentions holding hands with one, but the scenes are brief.
Violence
Those who are sensitive to abuse may want to refrain from reading this book. There was an abusive family member and several disturbing scenes. There were some threats and abusive language as well, but everything was impactful for the story.
Language
The swearing was minimal and was mostly used in abusive situations. The swearing was limited, but there were some cases of a character calling another character a “whor*”.
Drugs and Alcohol
The book had limited mention of alcohol. There were a few instances where beer was mentioned, but those scenes were short and never in-depth.
Diversity
There were Mormon characters and some characters that were not religious.
Demographic
Although I believe anyone could enjoy this book, the audience is most likely women because the main character is a female. I think anyone could learn something from this book and would quite honestly suggest it to everyone who was willing to listen.
The writing was easy to read and anyone who was at a middle school level or above would be able to read the book with ease.
I loved this book! It was one of my favorites that I have read this year. It was one of those books that I could not believe was a memoir.
I had an interesting perspective on it because I was homeschooled, but my experience was extremely different. I was encouraged to go to college, and I went to a public high school. The author’s childhood was crazy! I could not believe some of the stories.
As someone who has read my Bible many times, I do find Mormon beliefs interesting. Many of them are taken from other religious scholars outside of the Bible, some of which I was not familiar with. I thought that the author did a good job of writing about her family’s beliefs. She did not mock Mormonism and she might still believe in some of it by the end of the book. However, the character started to understand everything around her and not just the things that her family had told her. I hope that people will read this and not think that all religious people act in the way of some of the characters. Westover even wrote in her forward that she wanted to ensure that she was not writing against Mormonism.
If you liked this book, I would suggest reading The Glass Castle, another spectacular memoir.
The Safe Pages Rating System
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