Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

By Lauren Hough

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing - Lauren Hough
  • Release Date: 2021-04-13
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 69 Ratings

Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be. Hough’s writing will break your heart." —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in unexpected corners.

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family."

Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self.
 
At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Reviews

  • Leaving Isn’t The Hardest Thing

    5
    By Kelvis815
    Profound. Honest. Sad. Hopeful. All at once.
  • Bitter and Angry

    2
    By D-273
    Online kerfuffle over this author’s reviews aside (Google it), I tried to read this on a trusted recommendation. It’s supposed to be a collection of personal essays regarding the author trying to acclimate to society outside the cult they grew up in, but just ends up reading like a laundry list of personal grievances against everyone and everything. (Given the aforementioned online kerfuffle, I am no longer surprised by the bitter resentment underlying the narrative.) I tried hard to ignore the adversarial tone of each essay, hoping it would improve with subsequent chapters as the author ostensibly grew up/older/learned more, but it only worsened, leading me to delete the book from my reader without finishing it. I simply couldn’t take the angry whinging for another paragraph.
  • One star

    1
    By Rach7372958163849
    For your Twitter rant acting like a child over 4 stars.
  • Visceral. A life that has been shockingly contemplated.

    5
    By Zekeorama
    This is the very best, most insightful, true-life story of someone’s journey that I have ever read. It helped me see things about myself and about other humans that I should’ve known, but didn’t. The unvarnished, unfinished truth of Lauren Hough’s life, written with humor, and guts, and all the messy pieces pressed into this book, and into my mind. Excellent.
  • I could not put it down

    5
    By JaneBerlinH
    Thank you for being our voice and making me feel like I’m real for the fist time.